Why This Matters:
Predatory communities on Instagram are targeting teens and young adults with content that glamorizes extreme dieting, obsessive exercise, and disordered eating. These groups often disguise themselves as “wellness” or “fitness” spaces but are actually promoting harmful and dangerous behaviors.

Importantly, disordered eating behaviors are widely recognized by clinicians as a form of self‑harm — intentional behaviors that damage one’s body and mental health. Instagram’s own Community Guidelines prohibit content that promotes self‑harm, yet these communities thrive unchecked, often monetizing vulnerable users’ insecurities for profit.

TikTok recognized the threat and banned the #SkinnyTok hashtag after widespread concern from experts and regulators. Yet Instagram continues to allow similar content — often rebranded and monetized — to thrive on its platform.

 
My Story:
When I was 16, I found Tumblr communities filled with pro‑eating‑disorder content. What started as ‘tips for losing weight’ quickly became an obsession with restriction, calorie counting, and punishing exercise. It fueled years of disordered eating that damaged my mental and physical health, and it took years to recover.

Now, as a registered dietitian, I’ve worked with many adults who have also been negatively impacted by harmful eating‑disorder‑related content on social media. These posts not only influence behavior, but have the potential to fuel years of disordered eating, depression, and self‑harm.

That same type of content is now thriving on Instagram, where teens and young adults are just as vulnerable as I was. Our future generations — and especially our girls — deserve better. No one should have to spend years fighting to reclaim their health because a social media platform failed to protect them.

 
Policy vs. Reality:
Meta publicly claims that Instagram bans content promoting eating disorders as part of its self‑harm policies. But a simple search for #SkinnyTok tells a different story: the top results are body‑checking videos and “tips” for extreme thinness — content that clearly violates those same policies.

This is a clear failure of enforcement. Meta has the rules in place but refuses to enforce them, leaving vulnerable teens and young adults exposed to predatory content.

 
Disordered Eating Isn’t Just Harmful — It’s Deadly:
Eating disorders aren’t just dangerous — they’re lethal. Research shows that 25–33% of people with anorexia or bulimia report suicidal thoughts, and over 25% attempt suicide at least once (BMC Medicine, 2019).

A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that adolescent girls (ages 12–17) and young women (ages 18–29) with disordered eating behaviors had significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation and attempts. Interpersonal stress — like bullying, body comparison, and social media pressure — directly amplified this risk.

When Instagram allows pro‑ED content and body‑checking posts to circulate under #SkinnyTok, it’s not just failing its own self‑harm policy — it’s amplifying suicide risk among vulnerable girls and young women.

 
Why Teens & Young Adults Are the Most Vulnerable:
Most eating disorders begin in adolescence or early adulthood — exactly the demographic that Instagram targets.

• The median age of onset is 16–18 years for anorexia and bulimia, with symptoms often emerging as early as 12–13 years.
• Nearly all first‑time diagnoses of anorexia, bulimia, and binge‑eating disorder occur before age 25 (BEAT, 2022, NIMH).

This means Instagram isn’t just exposing young users to harmful content — it’s doing so at the exact time they’re most likely to develop these disorders.

Generation Z spends more time on social media than any previous generation — often over 3 hours a day (U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, 2023). This constant exposure significantly impacts body image, mental health, and eating behaviors.

A 2023 scoping review of 50 studies across 17 countries found that social media use is a plausible risk factor for disordered eating and body image concerns in young people (ages 10–24), mediated by constant comparison, thin‑ideal internalization, and self‑objectification (PLOS Global Public Health, 2023).

By age 20, up to 15–47 % of adolescents and young adults report disordered eating behaviors, and roughly 13 % meet criteria for a diagnosable eating disorder (PLOS Global Public Health, 2023).

 
The Impact:
Eating disorders are serious, life‑threatening illnesses. When disordered eating is normalized or glorified, it becomes self‑harm disguised as “lifestyle advice.” Glamorizing these behaviors for likes, followers, or profit is predatory. These practices exploit young people’s insecurities and mental health struggles — leading them toward dangerous behaviors that can have lifelong consequences.

 
Our Demand:
We call on Meta (Instagram’s parent company) to:

• Explicitly classify disordered eating content as self‑harm and enforce existing self‑harm policies to remove it.
• Ban #SkinnyTok‑style content and rebranded hashtags that promote disordered eating.
• Enforce stricter moderation on monetized groups profiting from this content.
• Redirect searches for eating‑disorder‑related content to mental health and recovery resources, as TikTok has done.

 
Why Now:
Every day without action leaves millions of teens and young adults exposed to harmful, predatory content. Instagram has the power — and the responsibility — to enforce its own policies and protect its youngest and most vulnerable users.

Join us in demanding that Meta take immediate steps to make Instagram safer. Sign this petition to protect teens and young adults from predatory disordered eating practices. Our future generations — and our girls — deserve better.