Liv Schmidt has inspired debates with videos that some believe encourage disordered eating. One social media site tried to remove her.
“It’s not a sin to want to be thin,” read a recent social media bio for Liv Schmidt, a polarizing content creator who amassed more than 670,000 followers on TikTok before the company disabled her account last week.
The Wall Street Journal wrote a profile about Ms. Schmidt on Monday in which she outlined her philosophies on dieting, including intentionally reducing calories. That led to a wave of online discourse about when promotion of ways to lose weight becomes encouragement of disordered eating and a broader discussion of where the concept of body positivity stands in the Ozempic era.
The Journal reported that their inquiries about Ms. Schmidt to TikTok led that company to ban her account before the article ran, after which The Daily Mail branded her the “skinny influencer.” Ms. Schmidt quickly returned to TikTok, posting videos under a different username.
Long before these events, critics had insisted that Ms. Schmidt’s videos posed a threat to impressionable viewers and were reminiscent of a pro-anorexia trend from the early 2000s, shortened by many to “pro-ana.” At that time, people openly promoted anorexic behavior, influenced by the ultrathin bodies of many models in the 1990s.
Why are people talking about Liv Schmidt?
Ms. Schmidt, 22, lists her job on LinkedIn as a social event coordinator for a private family office, but she built her social media following in recent months by posting blueprints for maintaining a slim figure while working a day job, including detailing her daily food intake through “What I Eat in a Day” videos. She has also spoken frankly about receiving better treatment from society after losing weight.
In the Wall Street Journal article, Ms. Schmidt, who declined a request to be interviewed by The New York Times, said that she had not struggled with disordered eating but knew what it was like to experience discomfort in her body. Ms. Schmidt also told The Journal, “We all have the option to follow and block any content we want.”