TECH

TikTok Floods Teens With Eating-Disorder Videos

TikTok is inundating users with videos ways to purge food that health professionals say contribute to a wave of eating-disorder cases.

By Tawnell D. Hobbs, Rob Barry and Yoree Koh
Jan. 9, 2022
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A Wall Street Journal investigation involving the creation of a dozen automated accounts on TikTok, registered as 13-year-olds, found that the popular video-sharing app’s algorithm served them tens of thousands of weight-loss videos within a few weeks of joining the platform.

 Inside TikTok's algorithm

TikTok said it would adjust its recommendation algorithm to avoid showing users too much of the same content, part of a broad re-evaluation of social-media platforms and the potential harm they pose to younger users.

Chris Delmas/AFP/Getty, Cover: Nitashia Johnson for WSJ, Previous: Rozette Rago for WSJ

Eating disorders for young people are surging across the U.S. in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Health professionals say the disorders often come with other issues such as depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and have worsened as kids have spent more time on their screens in isolation.

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Andie Duke said that she first began watching TikTok while learning online at home at the beginning of the pandemic. She said she spent hours watching videos focused on calorie counting, excessive exercise and curbing hunger—and ways to hide what she was doing from parents.

Nitashia Johnson for WSJ
“The more I interacted with those types of videos, the more they started to show up. I wasn’t able to see how it was affecting me.”

—Andie Duke, 14, who was diagnosed with an eating disorder after several months on TikTok

Amanda Moreno Duke (left), pictured with her daughter Andie

When the pandemic lockdown made Daisy Gonzalez depressed, she turned to TikTok to help pass the hours without friends. Influenced by the extreme diets shared on TikTok, she started to restrict her own.

She dropped nearly a hundred pounds in one year and had to have her gallbladder removed after developing gallstones.

Laura Thompson for The Wall Street Journal

TikTok said it removed

81,518,334

videos—less than 1% of all videos—in the quarter from April to June for violating guidelines or terms of service.

Laura Thompson for WSJ

Eating disorders can take on a competitive edge on TikTok. At least 800 of the creators that appeared in the video feeds of the Journal’s accounts included weight “stats” in their profiles—with one posting a starting weight of 106 pounds, a current weight of 96 pounds and an ultimate goal weight of 70 pounds. Many claimed to be younger than 18.

Images TikTok served to the Journal's bots

That competitiveness derailed Aliya Katz’s recovery.

The 17-year-old, who developed an eating disorder at age 12, said she turned to TikTok’s community to aid her recovery. She said she received encouragement, but it wasn’t long before competition over who was sickest set her back.

Rozettte Rago for WSJ

Mariam Fawzi said that she learned about losing weight and then disguising it on TikTok, such as hiding food and wearing loose clothing. She said she also learned about extreme exercising, such as a 24-miles-in-a-day running challenge, which she did twice.

Mariam Fawzi, left, with her mother, Neveen Radwan

Neveen Radwan
“It makes you feel like, I’m not being self-destructive, this is just what’s being given to me.”

—Ella West, who tried a diet strategy that involved pouring zero-calorie Kool-Aid flavor packets on ice cubes as an alternative to food.

Ella West

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Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, who runs Omega Recovery for social-media addiction and other disorders, said signs to look for in determining whether a child has an unhealthy relationship with social media include changes with body image, spending so much time on sites that daily functioning is impeded, dropping grades and not participating in activities offline.

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Produced by Julia Munslow

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