The legging trend has been trending on social media and young females are seen claiming that their legs don’t appear “good” when dressed in sports tights. TikTok has taken action against a “toxic” new trend in response to widespread user outcry over the platform’s maintenance of unhealthy and unattainable body standards.
Early this year, the legging trend started to gain popularity. It spreads the false notion that there is one perfect body type and appearance, which could mislead and even hurt naïve and susceptible young minds. A number of international sites have reported that the social media platform has now prohibited the hashtag, displaying information about disordered eating to users who try to search videos of it instead.
The term refers to the visible thigh gap seen in leggings or lycra trousers. This fashion has encouraged women all over the world to flaunt their own genetic makeup, which is given to them by God and frequently unattainable by others.
Legging Trend Banned On TikTok
A TikTok Australia spokesperson confirmed that “when people search for legging legs or content related to eating disorders, they are shown a pop-up with a link to the Butterfly Foundation. TikTok is an inclusive and body-positive environment and we do not allow content that depicts, promotes, normalises or glorifies eating disorders. Basically it’s a trend saying that if you have leggings and you wear leggings, your legs have to look a certain way in them. Again, this is disgusting. Do not let social media tell your body that it is a trend. If you have a body and you have leggings, you have legging legs.”
Therapist Holly Essler has called the fad “repulsive,” and older women have denounced it, seeing “legging legs” as the repackaging of poisonous body image norms from their own childhood.
Another one questioned, “we understand what we are doing to the younger generation of women. Do we understand that there are 15-year-old girls that wear leggings every single day that now feel that they cannot wear leggings because they don’t have legging legs … the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Do you understand that because of your video telling some little girl that she doesn’t have legging legs, she now feels that she can’t fit into society”.
Steph Claire Smith, an Australian, denounced the movement as “toxic” and “disappointing.” She said, “I remember being obsessed with having a thigh gap. I remember it driving me insane, being angry at my genetics, basically, and losing anything that I had on my legs just to have a friggin’ gap because social media told me that was what was attractive. And now there is a trend: legging legs. If you have legs, and you’ve got a pair of leggings on, you’ve got legging legs. Don’t worry what the internet is freaking saying. I am so, so done, so done, with these stupid trends that are so, so toxic and so damaging.”
Why The Legging Trend Is Bad For Teenagers?
In a recent poll, the Butterfly Foundation, an Australian eating disorder support and treatment organisation, discovered that over half of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18 said social media is to blame for their unhappiness with their bodies. Numerous studies conducted in the last few years have also discovered a concerning link between eating disorders and body dissatisfaction and the use of Instagram and TikTok.
“It’s critical that we combat this rhetoric and encourage people to see themselves as a whole being, rather than just their appearance and body size,” stated Melissa Wilton, head of communication and engagement at the Butterfly Foundation.
She also said, “Research shows that the more a person internalises these unrealistic body and appearance ideals, the more likely they are to experience body dissatisfaction which can lead to the development of disordered eating and eating disorders.”
