SkinnyTok, calorie deficits and Liv Schmidt

Could simply eating what you like be a radical act?

It only felt right that my first Lilly Eat World Substack would be about food; I’ve just come at it from a slightly different angle this time…

I really like to eat. As far as I can remember I always have. Call it a hobby, greed or gluttony, I – like many people on the planet – enjoy stuffing my gob with all manner of spectacular things, sometimes to the point of excess, and derive great pleasure from doing so.

Sunday roasts, spaghetti bolognese, buttered toast, wood-fired pizza, piles of chips, sushi, poppadoms, crisps and dips, pick and mix, chocolate biscuits – the list goes on; some things are just better when there’s more of it.

Unfortunately, I live in an Ozempic-ified world where across the internet SkinnyToks, wellness content, WIEIAD videos and various social media accounts related to fitness and food encourage discipline, calorie deficits, clean eating and protein (and protein, and protein, and protein).

Although this sort of content targets people across the board, the more toxic, insidious and pro-ana-esque kinds that are trojan-horsed in as “health and wellness” are undoubtedly geared towards women.

And it’s not just to do with food, what you eat, when you eat, how you eat. It’s about the kind of person this makes you. As Annie Joy Williams writes in her piece for The Atlantic, “The Body-Positivity Movement Is Over: Liv Schmidt and the Rise of SkinnyTok”,

“I started listening more closely to the SkinnyTok videos. They weren’t just about self-deprivation. They were about being classy. They were about being a lady – the right kind of woman, one that men drool over. They were, most importantly, about being small.”

The rising consensus among certain thin people on the internet seems to be that skinniness isn’t just desirable, but it’s the correct, most moral, most feminine, chaste, restrained, refined and ladylike way to live.

The flipside of this must therefore mean that women who don’t prioritise thinness and discipline when eating are less desirable, unfeminine, crude, gauche, base, unprincipled, sinful and vulgar. Pretty harsh.

Overindulgence must be followed by punishment, whether that be exercise, fasting, or a detox. And don’t forget the shame. And with the rise of weight-loss jabs in people who don’t medically require them, the possibility of overindulgence is eradicated; cut out the middle man and make the idea of food nauseating to start with (I struggle to think of a sadder existence).

If it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that this is happening after the body positivity movement and #MeToo, that’s because it may not be. As Anne Marie Chaker writes in Time in her first-person piece titled “Becoming a Bodybuilder at 50 Showed Me That Women Were Never Meant to be Thin”,

“Bursts of the ‘return to skinny’ have always surfaced at pivotal moments – right when women are on the brink of claiming more power. It’s no coincidence. The flapper look took hold in the 1920s just as women won the right to vote – a new, boyish silhouette for a new kind of woman, one who was suddenly politically powerful. In the 1960s, Twiggy’s thin, androgynous frame became the face of fashion right as the women’s liberation movement was gaining traction, challenging traditional roles and demanding equality. In the 1990s, heroin chic surged in popularity as women flooded law schools, boardrooms, and newsrooms in record numbers – a visual counterpunch to female ambition.”

Anything linked to the control of women is going to be political. That includes keeping them small, thin, self-conscious, ashamed and potentially weaker – be that physically or mentally.

It may sound like a mad conspiracy theory, but they – be that the man, the establishment, the evil forces of neoliberalism, or anyone scared of powerful females – seem to benefit from women being hungry. So, can enjoying your food, eating what you like, and fuelling your body be a radical act?

Is it the case that not feeding yourself properly instead feeds into a system of female oppression?

Indulging, overeating or finishing that last slice of pizza doesn’t make you a bad person – but it could be a big fuck you to those who think women should behave in a certain way.

While the SkinnyTok hashtag has officially been banned from the app, it’ll take more for a whole culture of thinness to be eradicated from a platform that profits off insecurity and starvation.

The cynics may think I’m spinning a yarn to justify eating inordinate amounts to the detriment of my health; I care about nutritious food for the most part, I enjoy weight-lifting so prioritise protein to an extent, my gut biome is something I think about regularly, and I will feel like ass if I eat nothing but processed food and takeaways, so I tend to avoid doing that.

I just don’t like skinniness being shoved down my throat as the beauty and moral ideal when I’d way rather be shoving crumpets dripping in marmite and butter, or egg mayonnaise baguettes, or pho, or ceviche, or eppoises and chutney, or steak and chips, or roast chicken, or falafel, or wine/beer/Guinness – sorry, I told you I liked food – down there instead.

Despite what SkinnyTok says, women like to eat, sometimes a lot! And there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you a better person to only eat three bites of your meal, but in my case, it’d make me sadder, angrier, weaker and less likely to think about anything else other than my hunger and potential skinniness.

And that’s one of the sad repercussions of worrying about how much you eat; it can end up being all you think about. In her piece for The Cut titled “‘It’s, Like, This Little Cult of Being Skinny’ In Liv Schmidt’s subscriber-only group, members encourage one another to eat as little as possible”, EJ Dickson spoke to Alison, 28, a girl who joined Schmidt’s cult-like group Skinni Société but left just a few months later.

“Like others in the group, she started experiencing physical side effects like dizziness and fatigue. ‘Liv would say this is normal, as your body is adapting to losing weight,’ she said. More than anything else during her time in the group, Alison was struck by just how much Schmidt inculcated her followers with a deep obsession with food, despite claiming that she would teach people to think about it less. ‘All she ever spoke about was food,’ she said. ‘She would talk about being hungry, how she’s looking forward to her next meal, how the amount of time she put into being skinny was suffocating. It’s actually pretty sad.’”

It’s really hard not to worry about food. It’s coming at us from all angles and all mediums at any possible time. We’re made to feel less than for the way we look, and now we’re slipping back into skinny beauty ideals and rhetoric being the norm. I’m not saying I won’t worry ever, but I will interrogate those feelings and remind myself that eating less or more doesn’t reflect who I am as a person, no matter what many corners of the internet say.

If I’m going to obsess about food, I’d rather I at least get to eat a fair bit of it. Eating is joy, eating is fuel, eating is fun, eating is love, eating is sharing, eating is not sharing, eating is life, eating is FEMINISM.

For anyone struggling, eating disorder charity Beat’s helpline is available 365 days a year on 0808 801 0677.
NCFED offers information, resources and counselling for those suffering from eating disorders, as well as their support networks. Visit eating-disorders.org.uk or call 0845 838 2040