Thinspiration

Thinspiration, also known as thinspo, is recognized as photographic content of women with thin body types promoting unhealthy eating habits and disorders. Thinspiration blends the words “thin” and “inspiration” as to give motivation to people with eating disorders or people who want to be thin to continue to deprive themselves of food.

Evolution

Thinspiration images were normally shared online in the early 2000s and 2010s on social media websites and forums, specifically in Pro-Ana groups, but not exclusively. Pro-Ana groups are found on WhatsApp group chats, Reddit, and Twitter. These groups promote disordered eating, specifically anorexia, by sharing pictures of their thin bodies and small meal portions, along with tips on how to remain thin. The "Ana" represents "anorexia", while "Pro" represents the reinforcement of disordered eating.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a blogging website that allowed users to create and repost images, videos, blog posts, forums, and discussions was especially popular between 2011 and 2015. Users would upload pictures of themselves, other existing images, or of celebrities that were thin to their blog to idealize this body type. While some people in the images may be naturally thin, some may be suffering from an eating disorder .

TikTok

Certain tags related to thinspiration were banned from other social media websites to avoid the promotion of eating disorders. Regardless, thinspiration content evolved onto other social media platforms through different formats that many people could not recognize immediately. TikTok, a short form video-sharing social media app, has fallen into the thinspiration loophole with many influencers adhering to the trend, consciously or not.

Thinspiration is often disguised through fitness and active content for example, “fitspiration,” weight loss journeys, body checking, “clean” eating, detoxing, etc. An example of a creator who participates in this kind of content would be Liv Schmidt who was recently named the "skinny influencer".

Schmidt is a TikTok content creator who creates short form videos promoting her unhealthy low-calorie diet and her workout routine in a positive fashion. While promoting this, she has uploaded countless videos of her thin body to advertise the results of her unhealthy habits. This is called body checking; it is photographs or videos uploaded by content creators posing to show off their bodies to keep track of how their bodies look and to flaunt their results. This type of content can be found on TikTok on creators pages similar to Schmidt's. Many researchers and online critics have said creators like Schmidt are problematic because it is threatening to audiences who are easily influenced (ie: adolescent girls and young women) and it is replicating thinspiration and Pro-Ana content since she is publicly promoting and attempting to normalize anorexic tendencies. Schmidt has been banned from TikTok for a brief period because of her content.

Idealization of thin body types

According to a study conducted by Madison R. Blackburn and Rachel C. Hogg in the United States of America using a sample of 273 women between the ages of 18-28 concluded watching only 7 minutes of TikTok content about women's body weight, including "neutral" content with women of a thin build but not discussing body weight, felt a decrease in their body image. Many people post their body transformation journey on TikTok, called fitspiration, which contributes to thinspiration due to displaying thin body types and weight loss. This type of content glamorizes diet culture, eating disorders, and excess exercise to become thin despite it being portrayed as healthy. It is viewed as controversial because it affects the self esteem of young women and it is a variation of thinspiration because it can influence consumers to go to drastic measures to attain that body type, possibly in a quick and unhealthy manner.

There has been a resurgence and glamorization of the “Tumblr 2014 aesthetic”. This aesthetic can be described as having a dark, grunge-like fashion sense, blue or purple hair colour, and enjoying indie music. This style was the trend during this period and any person who carried this style was considered “cool." Alongside this, the body type came with the style, which is a thin body type; specifically thigh gaps and protruding ribs. In order to be perceived as “cool,” a person must have these attributes. This created the evolution of thinspiration from forums and blogs to Tumblr in 2014. Now, it has moved along onto other social media applications like TikTok and Instagram, where thinspiration has evolved to body checking and is seen as a cool way to perhaps show off a new workout set or how much weight it is lost. Most people, mostly women, who body check can be seen as "cool" because of their weight, outfit, and their physical appearance. In addition, there are content creators, on TikTok for example, that are body checking while portraying the "Tumblr 2014 aesthetic" at the same time and this is problematic since it is glorifying the unhealthy eating habits that are attached to the aesthetic.

Despite the promotion of healthy eating that may be present on social media like TikTok and Instagram currently, many younger generations could not participate in the Tumblr 2014 trend. Therefore, there is a young demographic that wants it to resurge in the present day so they can experience it.