Woman banned from TikTok over ‘dangerous’ weight loss advice
A 22-year-old described as having an “unhealthy devotion to being thin” has clapped back after being removed from TikTok for “dangerous” videos.
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An influencer who was banned from TikTok for sharing controversial weight-loss advice has clapped back after her content was labelled “dangerous” and “harmful”.
Liv Schmidt recently amassed a following of almost 700,000 people with her videos that experts and dietitians have described as demonstrating an “unhealthy devotion to being thin”.
Critics argued Schmidt was glamorising disordered eating by emphasising “it is important to stay skinny” – and called for the 22-year-old corporate worker’s content to be removed.
TikTok has since taken action, shutting down her account and stating she violated community guidelines with her “disordered eating” posts.
While many applauded the move, Schmidt – who lives in New York – has been quick to defend her controversial advice after garnering widespread outrage.
“For me and my personal aesthetic, I like to be skinny and there’s nothing wrong with that,” she claimed in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“Weight is a touchy topic, but that’s what the viewers want.”
She also claimed her desire to “save America from obesity one person at a time” – as indicated in her now-deleted TikTok bio, according to the WSJ – originates from her own personal struggles with feeling confident in her body.
“I’m trying to build a genuine thing,” she told the publication, which reported she was “confused and upset” by the decision and said she “felt misunderstood”.
However her critics argued Schmidt’s “what I eat in a day” TikTok videos – which linked to a curated Amazon storefront stocked with dietary supplements, ankle weights and protein powders, and a “Skinny Group Community Chat”, which costs $US9.99 per month (about $15 Australian dollars) in subscription fees – were “incredibly harmful” with some labelling the account “sickening”.
“There’s not a single day where I don’t thank God that I didn’t download TikTok until I was in my 20s,” one person shared on Reddit.
“I want better for our youth. Young girls have and will continue to, die due to sh*t like this being peddled on the internet,” another shared.
As another wrote: “There’s something so deeply sinister about a ‘regular’ influencer posting food like this and pretending like it’s normal, ESPECIALLY because there’s a massive population of girls on TikTok who are too young to realise that eating like this isn’t okay.”
The Australian Government Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) states that food provides energy, nutrients and other components that, if provided in insufficient or excess amounts can result in ill health.
The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommends Australians eat a wide variety of nutritious foods from the 5 food groups every day, including plenty of vegetables, fruit, grain foods (mostly wholegrain), lean meats and poultry as well as dairy. Drinking plenty of water is also essential for good health.
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Originally published as Woman banned from TikTok over ‘dangerous’ weight loss advice
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