“It’s not a sin to want to be thin,” read a recent social media bio for Liv Schmidt, a polarizing content creator who amassed more than 670,000 followers on TikTok before the company disabled her account last week.
The Wall Street Journal wrote a profile about Ms. Schmidt on Monday in which she outlined her philosophies on dieting, including intentionally reducing calories. That led to a wave of online discourse about when promotion of ways to lose weight becomes encouragement of disordered eating and a broader discussion of where the concept of body positivity stands in the Ozempic era.
The Journal reported that their inquiries about Ms. Schmidt to TikTok led that company to ban her account before the article ran, after which The Daily Mail branded her the “skinny influencer.” Ms. Schmidt quickly returned to TikTok, posting videos under a different username.
Long before these events, critics had insisted that Ms. Schmidt’s videos posed a threat to impressionable viewers and were reminiscent of a pro-anorexia trend from the early 2000s, shortened by many to “pro-ana.” At that time, people openly promoted anorexic behavior, influenced by the ultrathin bodies of many models in the 1990s.
Why are people talking about Liv Schmidt?
Ms. Schmidt, 22, lists her job on LinkedIn as a social event coordinator for a private family office, but she built her social media following in recent months by posting blueprints for maintaining a slim figure while working a day job, including detailing her daily food intake through “What I Eat in a Day” videos. She has also spoken frankly about receiving better treatment from society after losing weight.
In the Wall Street Journal article, Ms. Schmidt, who declined a request to be interviewed by The New York Times, said that she had not struggled with disordered eating but knew what it was like to experience discomfort in her body. Ms. Schmidt also told The Journal, “We all have the option to follow and block any content we want.”
While TikTok does not discuss the details of decisions about individual accounts, a representative confirmed that Ms. Schmidt’s original account was removed because of violations of community guidelines. Those guidelines prohibit content that promotes disordered eating or dangerous weight-loss behaviors.
Despite that decision by TikTok, Ms. Schmidt has maintained an online presence on multiple social media platforms. On Instagram, where she has more than 68,000 followers, she offers a subscription for $9.99 per month in which she shares advice and offers access to a chat where followers can share tips for motivation.
What do her fans say?
Ms. Schmidt’s fans have suggested that the criticism is overblown and that expressing a desire to be thin is not inherently bad, while also emphasizing the importance of individual responsibility. Users rallied behind her in the comments of a recent video from her new account, welcoming her back, thanking her for sharing tips and asking why she would be barred for promoting a healthy lifestyle.
“I was genuinely surprised that so many people were put off by her content,” said Lakin Kandrick, 20, a student at the University of Pittsburgh who began to follow Ms. Schmidt after gaining weight her freshman year.
Ms. Kandrick said she had recovered from an eating disorder and that she did not feel triggered by Ms. Schmidt’s content. “It just struck me as she’s just being honest about what eating in a calorie deficit looks like,” she said.
What do the experts say?
Ms. Schmidt is not the only content creator who has come under fire for posts that evangelize weight loss. And those creators are in a long line of people who have encouraged extreme dieting to fit various societal standards.
Compared with the “pro-ana” content of the early 2000s, Ms. Schmidt’s rhetoric is “a lot more subtle and nuanced but equally as seductive,” said Kathleen Someah, a psychologist in Marin County, Calif., who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders.
Social media sites and individual users have tried to limit certain types of content by various age ranges, and Ms. Schmidt told The Journal that only users 18 and older could view her TikTok account. But Maria Rago, a clinical psychologist and the president of the national eating disorder nonprofit ANAD, said a content creator like Ms. Schmidt might be in a special position to influence young adults who spent some of their formative years isolated by the pandemic, and that this made scrutiny of her accounts appropriate.
“They’re very vulnerable to things on the internet — that was their way of connecting because of the isolation they had, and the lack of socialization,” Ms. Rago said. “They think this girl is their best friend.”
Emmeline Clein, the author of “Dead Weight,” a book that examines the effects of Western beauty standards, said that focusing too much on Ms. Schmidt might distract from a larger issue.
“Just as we did then when the pro-ana forums were banned from Tumblr, we’re just demonizing specific teens and early-20s women as though they invented it,” Ms. Clein said, adding, “When we make Liv the villain of the story rather than Instagram or TikTok, all that does is bully a woman, while making space for the next one.”
Where to find help
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