Almost a decade ago, I was finally fed up with seeing two distinct but related types of disturbing social media content: “thinspo” and “fitspo.” The former is a shortened form of the term “thinspiration,” defined as content that encourages individuals to be thin at any cost. The latter (short for “fitspiration") is, as I wrote in a 2016 article for Seventeen, thinspo’s “not-so-distant cousin,” claiming to encourage a “healthier” lifestyle but actually promoting many of the same disordered habits as thinspo. Both fall under the umbrella of the “pro-anorexia" or "pro-ana" movement, which—unbelievable as it may seem—offers individuals explicit guidance for maintaining eating disorders.

Thinspo and the related types of content aren’t just niche problems confined to dark corners of the internet. These harmful images and messaging can trigger or exacerbate disordered eating in those vulnerable to developing eating disorders, and have a negative impact on the physical and mental health of nearly all social media users who encounter them. Read on for more information about thinspo, the real risks associated with it, and how to seek help if you or a loved one is being affected by it.

What is “thinspo”?

While definitions vary slightly, “thinspiration” or “thinspo” is generally considered to be content that encourages viewers to attain a smaller body through any means necessary. Regardless of how “inspirational” or “helpful” this type of content claims to be, it often promotes disordered eating behaviors and an unrealistic body ideal.

“Thinspo is the promotion of thinness via social media and culture—especially the internet,” says Equip therapist Jonathan Levine, LCSW. “Sometimes, this can involve people with active eating disorders or disordered eating promoting harmful behavior that they may not fully even know is harmful.”

According to Jamie Drago, a peer mentor at Equip who is in recovery from an eating disorder, the thinspo content she came across generally consisted of photos depicting extremely thin bodies. And even when the content was labeled as “fitspo,” it generally shared the same message of endorsing thinness at any cost. According to Levine, this promotion of one particular body type (often through unhealthy and disordered measures) is due, at least in part, to our society’s tendency to believe that “thin” equals “good.”

“Society sells us all the myth that you must be thin to be pretty, rich, successful, etc.,” Levine says “People say ‘I'll be happy when I'm thin, I'll find a relationship, a job, a life, when I'm thin.’ But the truth is, these things are not related, and one can be happy, successful, joyful, and everything else, in a larger body.”

It’s also important to consider that for some, eating disorders can create a false sense of control—a reality that, according to Levin, thinspo preys upon. “Thinspo tells us the lie that if we focus, if we try hard, we can be thin—and if we can be thin, we can do anything,” he says. “That's problematic for a plethora of reasons, especially because it leaves out the complexities of genetics, food insecurity, capitalism, and how many parts of our lives impact our bodies and how we store weight.”

Tracking the rise of thinspo

While diet culture and the idolization of thinness has been around for a long time, thinspo really took off in the late 90s and early 2000s with the rise of the Internet. As photo and content sharing became more accessible, it also became easier to spread harmful rhetoric regarding weight, body image, and eating and exercise behaviors. By the early 2000s, thinspo and pro-ana content was cropping up on social media platforms like Tumblr, Xanga, MySpace, and Facebook.

Drago also points out that many forms of non-Internet content throughout the 1990s and 2000s—including magazines and television shows like America’s Next Top Model—showcased images of extremely thin individuals or even explicitly body shamed those who didn’t fit that extreme mold. “As the internet expanded, more intentionally direct thinspo showed up on Myspace, Youtube, and heavily exploded on Tumblr, which was a more anonymous platform with looser safety measures,” Drago says. “Pinterest and Instagram first flourished with ‘aspirational’ or ‘wellness content,’ but later the same hashtags served to find the content that had previously dominated the Tumblr space. Today this content spans every social media app.”

Despite several sites attempting to ban thinspo, it’s still rampant. And while the body positive movement pushed a lot of this type of content underground for a while, it never fully went away—and even seems to have made its way to the surface of the culture once in more recent years. “Thinspo continued on but did wane a bit around the 2010s, only to make a massive return in the last two years,” says Levine. “TikTok and other social media sites have again proliferated thinspo, impacting those who do not even go searching for the content due to the insidiousness of algorithmic ingestion.”

As for why there is even an audience for thinspo, Drago believes the content appeals to those with and without eating disorders as a form of “inspiration” that is really just a problematic perpetuation of harmful beauty ideals and diet culture. “Oftentimes this content may feel like it’s ‘helpful’ in reinforcing motivation for weight loss,” she says. “Much of this is shame-based, with the idea of ‘tough love’ or that shame is a good motivator for change, which it’s not. For me, this made it very alluring and it almost made me forget that most people in ‘real life’ do not look like that—but because it was all of the content I was consuming, it was easy to think that that appearance is also everywhere.”

The very real risks of thinspo

While, on the surface, thinspo may seem like an easy-to-ignore category of online content, its potential harm—and the fact that it’s everywhere—make it legitimately risky and possibly dangerous. According to Levine, the promotion of thinspo content not only normalizes dangerous behaviors that aren't at all healthy or “normal,” but it can also alter a person’s algorithm so that it serves up increasingly dangerous content due to them previously engaging with similar posts. By “liking” (or even just watching) a thinspo post here and there, someone’s feed might gradually become full of accounts promoting disordered exercise, extremely restrictive eating, and more harmful content.

“Thinspo can lead to someone trying to lose weight in ways that they believe are healthy but are more aligned with eating disorder behaviors,” Levine says. “We are what we do; so if someone starts engaging in eating disorder behaviors, they will develop an eating disorder whether they knew what they were doing, or not.”

Drago agrees, noting that thinspo poses serious risks to both mental and physical health. “As I experienced, it can create a false sense of the reality of what others look like, along with intensifying feelings of self criticism and judgment,” she says. “These online spaces can introduce people to disordered ways of thinking and eating disorder behaviors, as well as being a place to reinforce the thoughts that already exist.”

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The relationship between eating disorders and thinspo

It’s not hard to see how content that praises thinness at any cost (and often, an extreme and dangerous cost) could potentially contribute to the development of eating disorders. While eating disorders aren’t caused by any one factor, psychosocial factors like the normalization of pro-ana messaging can absolutely trigger disordered behaviors in someone who is genetically predisposed to an eating disorder (or who has been exposed to other known contributing factors).

“Ample research shows that the more exposure you have to thinspo content, the more likely you are to experience body image distress and possibly disordered eating habits like restriction of compulsive exercise, which can then lead to a full blown eating disorder,” Levine says.

One 2023 study found that social media usage—which may include intentionally seeking out thinspo or pro-ana content—is a plausible risk factor for the development of eating disorders. The study also found that this association is not unique to traditionally Western cultures, given that approximately 60% of the world’s young people engage with social media.

Another study from the same year found that social media use—especially via image-based platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube—has significantly increased in recent years, and that exposure to weight loss content is associated with poor body image and disordered eating. The more disturbing aspect of this research is that the amount of time someone spends on social media doesn’t necessarily indicate how intense its impact will be—so even a relatively short amount of time viewing thinspo could potentially have the same harmful effect as scrolling for hours. “This study noted that content was more impactful than duration, in that the more severe the content, the higher risk someone would have for developing an eating disorder compared to others who engaged with a larger amount of content that was less severe in thinspo nature,” Levine says.

To add to that, curating one’s feed to include “healthy” body image examples doesn’t counter the negative effects of thinspo, as exposure to body positive or body neutral content doesn’t seem to protect against more harmful posts.

Drago’s lived experience illustrates how thinspo can feed into the development of an eating disorder, and keep it going: “Thinspo content, ‘pro-ED’ content, and even the very early era of ‘aspirational’ influencers had a massive impact on the escalation of my eating disorder,” she says. “The language used in that community reinforced the thoughts I had in my own head already, and the images I spent hours and hours looking at served a purpose of intentionally triggering my eating disorder—which I think is a behavior that is often not acknowledged or talked about.”

What to do if you’re worried a loved one is seeking out thinspo

If you’re concerned about someone who is immersed in the world of thinspo or even just casually perusing thinspo content, it’s important to approach them gently with sincere care and concern. “Be curious,” Levine says. “Ask them about their goals and remind them that their body is not the most interesting thing about them. A full, well-rounded life is more enjoyable than a restricted, rigid one full of calorie counting and compulsive, compensatory exercise, but it's easy to forget that when you're not outside living life and instead are living through someone else's social media content.”

When approaching someone about their interest in thinspo, Drago believes it’s important to attempt to gain an understanding of what they may be getting out of the content—and how you might help them find it in other, healthier places. “It’s possible they are seeking community or a sense of being understood, and there is a chance you could support them in finding a more supportive community and help,” she says.

And if you’re being negatively affected by thinspo yourself, Levin encourages you to reach out for support as soon as possible. “Don't be afraid to seek professional help,” he says. “We know early intervention is critical in supporting people's recovery and well-being, so being proactive can go a long way.”

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