By Sophia Worringer, Deputy Policy Director CSJ
A worrying new trend the CSJ first heard of at a young people’s focus group in South Yorkshire.
This blog contains upsetting detail about eating disorders. Please visit Beat1 if you are struggling or need support.
“Pro-ana” in this digital age is increasingly influenced by magnetic algorithms pushing content that normalises and encourages eating disorders. In a recent focus group, we heard about a worrying new trend circulating predominantly on TikTok which is contributing to the rise in eating disorders.
Jang Wonyoung is a member of the popular K-Pop band Ive and shot to fame after winning a reality competition series in 2018. Some fans of Wonyoung replicate her life including her morning routine, her organisation, productivity and self-confidence. Termed ‘Wonyoungism’, this lifestyle of taking good care of yourself is the standard of aesthetic Wonyoung’s followers aspire to.
But there is a darker side to this trend and some young people are going to extreme lengths to look like Wonyoung, restricting their eating to very unhealthy levels, all in the name of self-improvement. To be clear, Wonyoung herself doesn’t promote this type of eating.
This trend is coinciding with a rise in the prevalence of eating disorders. Between 2017 and 2023, the prevalence of eating disorders in 17 to 19 years old rose from 0.8 per cent to 12.5 per cent in England2. Whilst eating disorders have traditionally been said to affect the upper and middle classes, there is rising evidence that disadvantage increases the risk of eating disorders, particularly in girls3. Between 2020 and 2022, the prevalence of eating disorders was 42.4 per cent higher than expected in girls aged 13 to 16 years across the UK, based on trends from the previous decade4.
TikTok, one the latest and fastest growing social medias, launched in 2016, took off during the Covid-19 pandemic and now boasts over a billion monthly active users globally. TikTok operates by finding content its algorithm recognises as being attractive to a user through generating a “For You” page. The algorithm is a complex and customised system which learns from content a user interacts with and feeds related content to their “For You” page. Whilst for some this content may be entertaining or based on an interest such as cooking, for others the content is extremely toxic.
One young woman we met visiting a charity in South Yorkshire highlighted the emerging trend of Wonyoungism. She told me: “TikTok is really harmful in my opinion… like this trend… if you wanna look like this K-Pop idol you have to eat like 300 calories a day, workout like crazy… Young people are being brought into it like 13 year olds, 10 year olds are being brought into starving themselves… They’re like, so how do I lose this much? Like how do I look like this girl?” Since Covid-19, there has been a large rise in eating disorder-related content on TikTok5 and even content which appears harmless is impacting the rise in eating disorders6.
When I spoke to a counsellor at Eikon, a charity in Surrey supporting young people, similar issues were highlighted. The counsellor told me about the “pro-ana” content which is contributing to the rise in eating disorders. She said: “I had one girl… she was losing a lot of weight… she was like yeah “I found stuff online and I know what diet I’m going to follow.” So it’s just so readily available.”
Harmful content on social media is rife and some of the most vulnerable, notably our teenage girls, are suffering the consequences. The first step to get ahead of this trend is for parents to understand the darker intent lurking behind some of this content. According to Ofcom, tech companies should be and can be doing much more to prevent algorithms promoting harmful content, especially for children7. But action by the tech companies will take time. Parents should consider measures to prevent their children accessing harmful content. Parental control apps, basic phones and restricting screen time are all means to tackle this problem and there are multiple campaign groups and charities who have advice on this, such as Papaya Parents8, a charity promoting healthy technology childhood.
We mustn’t be fooled that Wonyoungism is harmless, it’s far from it.
- https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/get-help-for-myself/i-need-support-now/helplines/ ↩︎
- NHS England, Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2023 – wave 4 follow up to the 2017 survey, November 2023
↩︎ - Mikhail, M et. Al, Context matters: Neighbourhood disadvantage is associated with increased disordered eating and earlier activation of genetic influences in girls, 2021 ↩︎
- Ford, T, Worrying post-pandemic trends in eating disorders and self-harm in adolescents, 2023 ↩︎
- Jordan, G, L et. Al, Tiktok, a vehicle for Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia content boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021
↩︎ - Logrieco, G, et. Al, The Paradox of Tik Tok Anti-Pro-Anorexia Videos: How Social Media Can Promote Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Anorexia, 2021 ↩︎
- Ofcom, Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online, 2024 ↩︎
- https://www.papayaparents.com/solutions ↩︎
