dianeseattle
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In late January, a volunteer at the help line for the National Alliance for Eating Disorders fielded a call from someone who had seen an alarming trend on TikTok. The hashtag #legginglegs had started taking off as users posted about the slim bodies seemingly deemed the most desirable for leggings.
The organization, which works directly with social media companies, quickly flagged the trend to TikTok. Less than a day later, the platform banned the hashtag and began directing users who searched for it toward the organization's hotline and other resources.
Trends like "legging legs" are part of a long history of harmful body image content that has proliferated online since the early days of the internet. "The minute they ban one hashtag, another one will pop up," said Amanda Raffoul, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital who studies eating disorders.
But she and other eating disorder experts said that the evolution of social media platforms has presented an even more vexing issue: how to approach algorithms that build on a user's interests to curate a feed that can quickly turn dangerous for people who are particularly vulnerable. Read more from @tminsberg at the link in bio.
