Health

‘SkinnyTok’ weight-loss trend could lead to food deprivation, experts caution

Published

3 weeks ago

April 27, 2025

‘SkinnyTok’ weight-loss trend could lead to food deprivation, experts caution

Social media can be a great source of fitness, nutrition and wellness tips — but it also has some potentially harmful content.

Enter “SkinnyTok,” a popular weight-loss trend making the rounds on TikTok.

Creators are pairing the hashtag with videos that share various ways to lose weight, many of them based on the goal of getting as thin as possible in a short amount of time.

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As of April 26, there were more than 60,000 videos from creators talking about SkinnyTok. One of those is Mandana Zarghami, 25, a business owner and influencer in Miami, Florida.

“What you eat in private will show in public,” Zarghami told her followers in a recent video.

The influencer spoke with Fox News Digital about her perception of the worldwide SkinnyTok trend.

“There’s an emphasis on portion control, prioritizing daily movement and knowing what foods will make you feel better from the inside out and more,” she said.

The creator acknowledged, however, that some of the content could be triggering for those who have battled disordered eating.

Mandana Zarghami, a TikTok creator, acknowledged that some of the SkinnyTok content could be triggering for those who have battled disordered eating. (Mandana Zarghami/TikTok)

“While some content under the SkinnyTok trend can promote motivation around health and wellness, it can also unintentionally glamorize unhealthy habits or unrealistic body standards if you’re following the wrong influencer or content creator,” Zarghami cautioned.

At the same time, she said, “you control what you consume.”

“What you eat in private will show in public.”

“It’s a little hard to be sensitive to each group, because a lot of the people who talk about SkinnyTok on their platforms also battled disordered eating and overcame it with healthy lifestyle choices,” Zarghami added.

Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurosurgeon and longevity expert, said he has witnessed the “devastating consequences” of extreme thinness firsthand, including women with fractured bones caused by malnutrition.

“This is a growing crisis, and it is being dangerously celebrated on social media under hashtags like #SkinnyTok,” he told Fox News Digital.

“When young people chase after extreme thinness through starvation diets, they invite frailty into their lives. The body, deprived of caloric energy, becomes extremely fragile.”

In teenagers and young adults, malnutrition disrupts hormones, weakens immunity, impairs cognitive function and can cause lasting damage to their still-developing brains, according to Osborn.

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Physical effects of malnutrition can include hair loss, reduced bone density and, in severe cases, irreversible structural damage, he added.

Low body weight or minimal body fat does not equate to good health, the doctor said.

“Starvation is not a virtue – it is an abandonment of the body’s nutritional needs,” he said. “The SkinnyTok trend preys on impressionable youth, particularly young women, encouraging them to shrink rather than thrive.”

Low body weight or minimal body fat does not equate to good health, one doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)

Rather than focusing on “extreme thinness,” Osborn called for a focus on building muscle, which he described as the “cornerstone of vitality.”

“In older adults, muscle loss — or sarcopenia — is a medical warning sign linked to increased risks of falls, fractures, hospitalizations, cognitive decline and even mortality,” he cautioned.

“Muscle loss doesn’t just weaken the body — it erodes the mind, hastening the onset and progression of dementia. The body and the brain are interconnected, and when one suffers, so does the other.”

woman lifting weights health and fitness

“Muscles are your shield against disease and decline. Being lean and strong, not thin and frail, is the true measure of health,” one doctor said. (iStock)

To those embracing the SkinnyTok trend, Osborn recommends that they shift the focus to building muscle.

“Muscles are your shield against disease and decline. Being lean and strong, not thin and frail, is the true measure of health,” he said.

‘THE CARNIVORE DIET SAVED MY LIFE AFTER DECADES OF ANOREXIA’

“Instead of glorifying starvation, we should teach our youth to nourish their bodies and minds, build resilience through muscle gained by strength training, and prioritize bodily function over any short-lived trend.”

Dr. Jillian Lampert, vice president of The Emily Program, an eating disorder treatment center based in Minnesota, also called out the potential risks of the SkinnyTok trend.

“It is a vicious cycle that quickly spirals from external messaging to internal criticism.”

“This content dangerously glorifies content that encourages people to take drastic measures to change their bodies,” she told Fox News Digital. “It also further ensnares people already struggling with their body image and thoughts of size and shape, reinforcing the notion that being thin at all costs is the norm.”

The behaviors in many of the videos are “often extreme” and highly limit foods or food groups, Lampert noted.

LITTLE-KNOWN EATING DISORDER NEARLY STARVED A 9-YEAR-OLD: ‘IT WAS TORMENTING HER’

The algorithms used by social media platforms make the content even more dangerous by amplifying the messages, according to the expert.

“Looking at one TikTok with even some less toxic body image content will teach the algorithms to send you more and more and more until your feed has become an avalanche of toxic content,” Lampert warned.

As people scroll through countless videos of “ideal” bodies and lifestyles, this often leads them to conclude that they’re not thin enough or attractive enough.

“This content dangerously glorifies content that encourages people to take drastic measures to change their bodies,” one expert told Fox News Digital. (iStock)

“Continual assessment of appearance and eating habits can make a person hypercritical and hyper-fixated on perceived flaws, thus fueling the cycle of eating less, which often leads to overeating and overexercising, which often leads to fatigue and loss of control around food,” said Lampert.

“It is a vicious cycle that quickly spirals from external messaging to internal criticism.”

Dr. Anastasia Rairigh, a Tennessee-based family physician and obesity medicine specialist at the virtual health platform PlushCare, warned that extreme weight-loss behaviors can be deadly.

“As a person severely limits their caloric intake, the body struggles to maintain the correct electrolyte balance,” she shared with Fox News Digital.

“When a person’s electrolytes are severely unbalanced, they can experience heart arrythmias or, in severe cases, cardiac arrest. Even if a person does not experience this, severe food deprivation can lead to damage to the heart, bones and brain.”

Close up woman walking on a path. Fitness concept.

“Many of us that promote SkinnyTok focus on proper nutrition, walking over 10,000 steps a day and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle,” a creator told Fox News Digital. (iStock)

People who deprive themselves of food may also notice effects on cognition, mood and sleep, Rairigh warned.

“Modeling a healthy attitude toward food is critically important to combating the negative influence of toxic diet culture,” she said, recommending that people focus on food as a source of energy rather than an enemy.

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“Supporting young people to focus on activities and interests outside social media has been shown to be helpful as well,” she said.

“Encourage and facilitate positive activities in the real world as a counter to time spent on social media.”

“Modeling a healthy attitude toward food is critically important to combating the negative influence of toxic diet culture.”

Those who are showing signs of disordered eating should see a doctor, Rairigh advised.

“While disordered eating is deadly, there is hope and treatment. Do not be afraid to reach out for help.”

Zarghami, the TikTok creator, reiterated the importance of setting positive examples on social media.

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

“Many of us that promote SkinnyTok focus on proper nutrition, walking over 10,000 steps a day and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle,” she told Fox News Digital.

“It’s so important to approach these trends with balance, focus on overall well-being rather than appearance, and encourage sustainable, nourishing choices that support both physical and mental health.”

Melissa Rudy is senior health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to melissa.rudy@fox.com.

Health

We Tried Three Doctor-Approved, Ozempic-Friendly Recipes | Woman's World

Published

14 hours ago

May 19, 2025

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We Tried Three Doctor-Approved, Ozempic-Friendly Recipes | Woman’s World

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Health

Weight-loss medications may also benefit common medical problem, study finds

Published

15 hours ago

May 19, 2025

Press Room

Weight-loss medications may also benefit common medical problem, study finds

Weight-loss medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists, which have gained popularity for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity, have been shown to have the surprising secondary benefit of reducing alcohol intake.

A team of international researchers from Ireland and Saudi Arabia followed 262 adult patients with obesity who started taking two GLP-1 medications: liraglutide or semaglutide.

Among the regular drinkers, weekly alcohol intake decreased by 68%, from approximately 23 units of alcohol to around 8 units.

WEIGHT LOSS, DIABETES DRUGS CAN CAUSE MOOD CHANGES: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BEHAVIORAL SIDE EFFECTS

The findings were recently published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism and were also presented last week at the European Congress on Obesity in Spain.

GLP-1 agonists mimic a hormone called GLP-1, which is released from the gastrointestinal system after eating, according to study co-author Carel Le Roux, a professor at University College Dublin.

Weight-loss medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists have been shown to have the surprising secondary benefit of reducing alcohol intake. (iStock)

These medications activate GLP-1 receptors in the brain, decreasing the sense of “reward” people feel after eating or drinking, eventually leading to reduced cravings for both food and alcohol, he told Fox News Digital.

“It is this commonality of function that suggests the GLP-1 receptors in the brain may be a therapeutic target for not just the disease of obesity, but also for alcohol use disorder,” the professor said.

Study findings

Before the participants started the weight-loss drugs, they self-reported their weekly alcohol intake, then were categorized as non-drinkers, rare drinkers or regular drinkers.

Approximately 72% had at least two follow-up visits and 68% reported regular alcohol consumption.

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After starting the weight-loss medications, the participants’ weekly average alcohol intake decreased by almost two-thirds overall — from approximately 11 units of alcohol to four units after four months of treatment with the GLP-1 agonists.

The reduction in alcohol use was comparable to the decrease that can be achieved by nalmefene, a drug that decreases the “buzz” feeling in people with alcohol use disorder in Europe, according to the researchers.

Among the regular drinkers, weekly alcohol intake decreased by 68%, from approximately 23 units of alcohol to around 8 units. (iStock)

For the 188 patients who were followed over an average of four months, none had increased their alcohol intake after starting the weight-loss medications.

Patients reported that after an evening meal, they were too full to have their usual drink — and when they did drink, they reported becoming full extremely quickly and drinking at a slower pace, Le Roux noted.

“The findings in this study suggest that we may have just found a therapeutic target for alcohol use disorder.”

This suggests that the experience was less enjoyable, partly due to the reduced rate of alcohol absorption.

Some patients also reported that they didn’t enjoy the flavor of the alcoholic beverages as much, and also that hangovers were much worse.

All of these experiences showed that the weight-loss medications create “guard rails” that prevent most patients from drinking excessively, giving them a degree of control over their alcohol intake, according to Le Roux.

After starting the weight-loss medications, the participants’ weekly average alcohol intake decreased by almost two-thirds overall. (iStock)

“The findings in this study suggest that we may have just found a therapeutic target for alcohol use disorder — the GLP-1 receptor,” the professor told Fox News Digital.

“This finding potentially opens the possibility of an entirely new pharmacological treatment paradigm, which could be used in conjunction with conventional methods, such as behavior therapy and group support.”

Potential limitations

The study was limited by its relatively small number of patients, the researchers acknowledged.

Also, the researchers were not able to verify the participants’ self-reported alcohol intake, and roughly one-third of them were not available for follow-up.

SEMAGLUTIDE FOUND TO HAVE SHOCKING BENEFIT FOR LIVER DISEASE PATIENTS IN NEW STUDY

There was also no control group, which means the researchers couldn’t prove that taking weight-loss medication reduces alcohol intake.

A woman prepares to administer an insulin injection

The main advantage of GLP-1 agonists is that they only need to be taken once a week and continue to work for the entire week. (iStock)

“Randomized, controlled trials with diverse patient populations — including patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder — are needed to provide the quality and quantity of data that could be used to support an application for licensing the medication for the treatment of alcohol use disorder,” Le Roux said.

(One such trial is currently underway in Denmark.)

Study implications

With the current medications available to treat alcohol use disorder, the “major problem” is compliance, Le Roux said — “because the cravings for alcohol tend to come in waves.”

“This means a patient might be fully committed to treatment at one point in the week, but then stop taking the medication later in the week when a craving comes,” the professor added.

There are currently three FDA-approved medications to treat alcohol use disorder: naltrexone (which helps decrease cravings by reducing the “buzz” feeling that comes with drinking alcohol); disulfiram (which helps some people avoid alcohol by making them feel sick when they drink), and acamprosate (which restores the balance of hormones in the brain to reduce cravings), according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

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But less than 10% of people with alcohol use disorder get the proper treatment, with many resuming use within the first year of treatment, past research shows.

The main advantage of the GLP-1 agonists is that they only need to be taken once a week and continue to work for the entire week.

Close-up of Ozempic pens and person injecting needle in background

For the 188 patients who were followed over an average of four months, none had increased their alcohol intake after starting the weight-loss medications. (iStock)

Outside experts say the study’s findings highlight the potential of weight-loss medications to help treat alcohol use disorder.

“This research suggests a promising ancillary benefit of GLP-1 analogs, potentially influencing cravings for alcohol and offering a new avenue for managing alcohol use disorder,” Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who was not part of the study, told Fox News Digital.

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

“While the exact mechanisms are still being explored, the findings contribute to our understanding of the broader benefits of GLP-1 analogs beyond obesity treatment,” Stanford added.

Health

Surgeons Perform First Human Bladder Transplant

Published

1 day ago

May 18, 2025

Press Room

Surgeons Perform First Human Bladder Transplant

Surgeons in Southern California have performed the first human bladder transplant, introducing a new, potentially life-changing procedure for people with debilitating bladder conditions.

The operation was performed earlier this month by a pair of surgeons from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California on a 41-year-old man who had lost much of his bladder capacity from treatments for a rare form of bladder cancer.

“I was a ticking time bomb,” the patient, Oscar Larrainzar, said on Thursday during a follow-up appointment with his doctors. “But now I have hope.”

The doctors plan to perform bladder transplants in four more patients as part of a clinical trial to get a sense of outcomes like bladder capacity and graft complications before pursuing a larger trial to expand its use.

Dr. Inderbir Gill, who performed the surgery along with Dr. Nima Nassiri, called it “the realization of a dream” for treating thousands of patients with crippling pelvic pain, inflammation and recurrent infections.

“There is no question: A potential door has been opened for these people that did not exist earlier,” said Dr. Gill, the chairman of the urology department at U.S.C.

Pushing the Envelope

Until now, most patients who undergo a bladder removal have a portion of their intestine repurposed to help them pass urine. Some receive an ileal conduit, which empties urine into a bag outside the abdomen, while others are given a so-called neobladder, or a pouch tucked inside the body that attaches to the urethra and allows patients to urinate more traditionally.

But bowel tissue, riddled with bacteria, is “inherently contaminated,” Dr. Gill said, and introducing it to the “inherently sterile” urinary tract leads to complications in up to 80 percent of patients, ranging from electrolyte imbalances to a slow reduction in kidney function. The loss of the intestinal segment can also cause new digestive issues.

Dr. Despoina Daskalaki, a transplant surgeon at Tufts Medical Center who was not involved in the new procedure, said advances in transplant medicine (from critical life-sustaining organs, like hearts and livers, to other body parts, like faces, hands, uteri and penises) had led doctors to start “pushing the envelope.”

“They’re asking: ‘Why do we have to put up with all the complications? Why don’t we try and give this person a new bladder?’” Dr. Daskalaki said.

In late 2020, Dr. Nassiri was in his fourth year of residency at the University of Southern California when he and Dr. Gill sat down in the hospital cafeteria to begin brainstorming approaches. After Dr. Nassiri began a fellowship on kidney transplantation at U.C.L.A., the two surgeons continued working together across institutions to test both robotic and manual techniques, practicing first on pigs, then human cadavers, and finally, human research donors who no longer had brain activity but maintained a heartbeat.

One of the challenges of transplanting a bladder was the complex vascular infrastructure. The surgeons needed to operate deep inside the pelvis of the donor to capture and preserve a rich supply of blood vessels so the organ could thrive inside the recipient.

“When we’re removing a bladder because of cancer, we basically just cut them. We do it in less than an hour on a near-daily basis,” Dr. Gill said. “For a bladder donation, that is a significantly higher order of technical intensity.”

The surgeons also chose to conjoin the right and left arteries — as well as the right and left veins — while the organ was on ice, so that only two connections were needed in the recipient, rather than four.

When their strategy was perfected in 2023, the two drew up plans for a clinical trial, which eventually would bring the world’s first recipient: Oscar.

An Ideal First Candidate

When Mr. Larrainzar walked into Dr. Nassiri’s clinic in April 2024, Dr. Nassiri recognized him. Almost four years earlier, Mr. Larrainzar, a husband and father of four, had been navigating end-stage kidney disease and renal cancer, and Dr. Nassiri helped remove both of his kidneys.

But Mr. Larrainzar had also survived urachal adenocarcinoma, a rare type of bladder cancer, and a surgery to resect the bladder tumor had left him “without much of a bladder at all,” Dr. Nassiri said. A normal bladder can hold more than 300 cubic centimeters of fluid; Mr. Larrainzar’s could hold 30.

Now, years of dialysis had begun to fail; fluid was building up inside his body. And with so much scarring in the abdominal region, it would have been difficult to find enough usable length of bowel to pursue another option.

“He showed up serendipitously,” Dr. Nassiri said, “but he was kind of an ideal first candidate for this.”

On a Saturday night earlier this month, Dr. Nassiri received a call about a potential bladder match for Mr. Larrainzar. He and Dr. Gill drove straight to the headquarters of OneLegacy, an organ procurement organization, in Azusa, Calif., and joined a team of seven surgeons working overnight to recover an array of organs from a donor.

The two brought the kidney and bladder to U.C.L.A., then stopped home for a shower, breakfast and a short nap. They completed the eight-hour surgery to give Mr. Larrainzar a new bladder and kidney later that day.

Dr. Nassiri said that kidney transplants can sometimes take up to a week to process urine, but when the kidney and bladder were connected inside Mr. Larrainzar, there was a great connection — “immediate output” — and his creatinine level, which measures kidney function, started to improve immediately. Mr. Larrainzar has already lost 20 pounds of fluid weight since the surgery.

The biggest risks of organ transplantation are the body’s potential rejection of the organ and the side effects caused by the mandatory immune-suppressing drugs given to prevent organ rejection. That is why, for Dr. Rachel Forbes, a transplant surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who was not involved in the procedure, the excitement is more tempered.

“It’s obviously a technical advance,” she said, but “we already have existing options for people without bladders, and without the downside of requiring immunosuppression.” Unless a patient is — like Mr. Larrainzar — going to be on those medications anyway, “I would be a little bit nervous that you would be exchanging some complications for others,” she said.

A new bladder transplant also does not have nerve connections in the recipient, so while it works well as a storage organ, doctors did not know whether Mr. Larrainzar would ever be able to sense a full bladder, let alone hold and empty it naturally. They spoke about catheters, abdomen maneuvers and eventually developing an on-demand bladder stimulator to help with the release.

But at a follow-up appointment on Thursday morning — just two days after Mr. Larrainzar was discharged from the hospital — Dr. Nassiri removed the catheter and gave him fluids, and Mr. Larrainzar immediately felt that he could urinate.

Dr. Nassiri called it a miracle, then phoned Dr. Gill, who was in a U.S.C. operating room, and exclaimed two words: “He peed!”

“No way! What the hell?” Dr. Gill said. “My jaw is on the floor.”

After finishing the surgery, Dr. Gill drove straight to U.C.L.A. and watched Mr. Larrainzar do it again.

“Of course, this is very, very early. Let’s see how everything goes,” Dr. Gill cautioned. “But it’s the first time he has been able to pee in seven years. For all of us, this is huge.”

Mr. Larrainzar, exhausted, smiled, and Dr. Nassiri brought him a bottle of mineral water to celebrate.