What’s the Harm of a Little Body Checking, Right?

What’s the Harm of a Little Body Checking, Right?

Written by Anna Bacal Peterson

Art by Lauren Mallett

If you’re anything like me, the first 30 minutes of your morning routine is spent in bed on TikTok, scrolling through countless nonsensical skits or the hot gossip of the week. It is all fun and games until one video catches your eye. A girl is standing in front of the camera pulling up a baggy t-shirt to reveal her midriff or maybe she is showing off her new bikini or a new outfit, turning to the side so that the camera can see every angle of it. 

Some of these videos are more extreme than others, but they all fall under the trend of “body checking.” Girls will have their partners try to wrap one arm around their waist and drink a cup of water, and there are challenges to see how small one can get when they tighten a corset. These trending videos are starting to dominate social media. Many don’t think a simple video on the internet can cause that much harm, but it can.

Popular TikTok content creator Lara Quinn thinks so as well. Quinn made a video responding to one of these body checking videos, and with 687.6k followers, she is one of the only big influencers speaking out against this phenomenon. “Everyone body checks, they just don't post it,” Quinn said. Most people take notice of their bodies when they look in the mirror. This is normal and isn’t harmful in moderation.  

When people start doing it publicly, it becomes problematic. The more people see creators on the internet posting videos showing off their idyllic figure, the more aware they are of their own bodies, leading to the dangerous side of in-person body checking. This includes wrist measuring, fat pinching and compulsive weighing on the scale. While it may seem like an innocent video, it may start a cycle of toxic habits and a warped sense of self that is hard to unlearn. 

Body checking videos tend to disguise themselves in wellness videos and outfit checks. These videos are also the ones that gain the most traction because they are easy to disguise.

 “When an influencer is under scrutiny for posting body checking videos, they deflect,” Quinn said. It is easy to deflect when the video in question has in the caption #fitcheck, or #wellnessroutine. 

Lifestyle influencer Beca Michie made a particularly harmful video according to many TikTok users, including Lara Quinn. In Michie’s original post, which has since been deleted, she shows off her outfit by lifting her shirt with the camera positioned to make her waist the focal point. When she was called out for this, she responded by complaining about not being allowed to innocently show off her outfit as a skinny individual. Michie raises a valid point, but in this video, she stares blankly at her body and turns to the side to better accentuate her figure. 

The comments under videos like Michie’s are concerning, to say the least. “I have to stop eating [for real],” says one commenter. “Oh what the hell, there goes my confidence,” says another. Although the creator didn’t make these comments, she isn’t addressing them. She may not be able to control every comment on her page, but being an influencer means that there are people watching you, and there is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with that. 

On the internet, hardly anything is real. “Lifestyle influencers curate their entire brand, and a part of their brand is being thin,” Quinn said. “They have the resources to buy their organic groceries, and they have a whole production team behind them working to protect their image.”

 A lot of the popular creators who participate in body checking are also models, such as Michie and Julia Ernst, and they have certain expectations on them to keep a specific body type. The problem isn’t that they’re creating a facade around their lives, but that they are making it look achievable to others by not prefacing the resources that they have. Some influencers are known to doctor their posts on FaceTune, a popular Photoshop-like app. Nothing on the internet is real, but that is a hard fact to accept when these allegations are not being acknowledged by the influencer. 

The newest addition to these body trends has been “legging legs.” Similar to the “thigh gap” craze on Instagram and Twitter in the late 2010’s, #legginglegs describes the ideal legs for athletic wear. TikTok tried to put a stop to these videos. Now, whenever you type the phrase “legging legs” or “body checking” into the search bar, you are met with a white screen that says “you are not alone,” with links to an explanation on what eating disorders are and how to spot them, and the number for the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. 

While this is a good attempt to filter out these videos, it's not hard to outsmart these blockers. I found all of the body checking videos included in this article by misspelling one word, like leaving the “k” out of “checking” and the “e” out of “leg.” The only way that these videos can stop causing harm is if TikTok takes more precautions with the content that is being posted on the app. In a perfect world, the app would do a better job at monitoring their content and setting up stricter age requirements for certain content.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to remember is that social media posts are just snippets of the best parts of people's lives. It is hard to scroll through people’s fake perfect lives without feeling inadequate. Everyone has their own insecurities, and while it is easier to admire a body when it is through a screen instead of through a mirror, you are never alone.

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders Helpline: 888-375-7767