TikTok’s Glorification and Purification of Extreme Weight Loss

 

TikTok influencer Liv Schmidt has gained a big platform in the past year for posting weight loss tips, reaching a following of 700k on TikTok and 250k on Instagram. Above is a screenshot from one of her ‘What I eat in a day’ videos. She is posed in a mirror at her office in a short, white, long sleeve dress paired with a black bag and shoes. She wears sunglasses and her blonde hair is effortlessly styled wrapping around her stern face, with no smile in sight. She stands with one leg in front, showing off her long, slim legs. Although ‘What I eat in a day’ videos are popular on TikTok, and not necessarily toxic, she makes sure to add to the caption ‘...to stay skinny as someone who works a 9-5.’ She further elaborates: ‘showing how you can eat whatever you want if you portion control.’ At the end of her caption she adds four emojis, a whale, a pig, and two cows. These emojis are all representative of names people use to shame weight gain.

In Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger her central claim surrounds what society sees as pure and impure and how these social norms are fostered, establishing order and disorder. She uses dirt as a metaphor, not discussing it as material filth but instead as deviation from what society has determined to be order. Dirt does not have intrinsic meaning, it is given meaning by society as a way to categorize and order the world. She further elaborates on the dangers of dirt’s impurity as a dangerous physical and social problem. Douglas discusses bodies as a physical site representing “clean” or “pure” values versus “polluted” or “impure” values. Categorizing purity and impurity is a way to maintain societal boundaries, and when these are crossed or blended, it is seen as a threat to social order. Because the meaning of dirt is not inherent, different cultures place meaning on separate values, creating their own social order. Douglas emphasizes the use of symbols to socially construct these ideals.


Liv Schmidt’s TikTok promotes one of societies boundaries of pure and impure: the ideal of a slim body, and the dangerous extremities justified to achieve it. Liv clearly puts value on her “pure” body by specifically telling her viewers what she eats “in order to stay skinny.” In the video she eats significantly less than the recommended amount of calories for a toddler, yet this is being presented as a way to achieve purity. This extremely dangerous behavior for a body is being broadcasted to her nearly 700 thousand viewers, many of whom are young girls with developing brains. Women face scrutiny to regulate their bodies and the strict control Liv is showing as necessary for them. They are subjected to societal pressure to keep their bodies looking to a certain, unrealistic standard. Douglas further elaborates on her ideas of pure and impure, by discussing danger. Liv’s inclusion of specific emojis, a whale, pig, and cows, acts almost as a warning to her viewers of what they should avoid becoming. These emojis, symbols of impurity, suggest that bodies that deviate from the slim ideal are dangerous and should be compared to animals. This dehumanizing comparison represents Douglas’s view of the dichotomy of pure and impure. The pursuit of a skinny body is a societal value forced onto women and reinforces the dangers that come with overstepping that boundary.

Not only is Liv Schmidt enforcing unhealthy behavior to achieve purity in a skinny body, TikTok glorifies this as “healthy eating tips” on their page. By positively labeling such unhealthy behavior it furthers the idea of this ‘pure’ skinny body as desirable and ideal. It pushes a harmful message that healthy eating is about looking a certain way to conform to our culture's socially constructed boundaries instead of nourishing one's body. To fit in with these unrealistic ideals it often comes at the expense of your health and well being. Why is this our version purity?


Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo.

London: Routledge.


TikTok. Liv Schmidt Eating. TikTok, www.tik tok.com. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025.


TikTok. [@livschmidt]. [2024]. "What I eat in a day at the office (To stay skinny as someone who

works a 9am-5pm)..." TikTok, accessed April 3, 2025.