Punishing regimens of facial workouts. Intentional hunger. Reshaping the jawline or cheekbones by way of smashing them with a hammer or chisel.
Those are one of the extra excessive behaviors in a tradition known as looksmaxxing – an effort to maximise one’s appears to be like in any respect prices – that’s attracting a huge following of in large part teenage boys and younger males on social media. Looksmaxxing has long gone from area of interest to mainstream since trending on TikTok within the early 2020s.
A lot of the media protection of looksmaxxing has curious about cultural dimensions, such because the misogynist ideology underlying this pattern and its implications for cultural conversations about masculinity. In the meantime, looksmaxxers with an extremely massive following of masses of hundreds of folks on social media platforms like TikTok and Kick have attained pop-culture standing.
However in the middle of this spectacle, the well-being of the younger males collaborating on this pattern has been in large part overpassed.
From my point of view as a psychological well being skilled finding out how folks suppose and speak about feelings and psychological well being, the behaviors related to looksmaxxing glance suspiciously like signs of dining issues and frame dysmorphia, also referred to as frame dysmorphic dysfunction.
Those issues are particularly damaging to younger people who find themselves within the throes of understanding who they’re, what they would like and tips on how to navigate relationships – efforts already sophisticated by way of the pressures of social media.
In my opinion, platforming those younger males and sensationalizing their behaviors, reasonably than spotting the ones behaviors as indicators of mental misery, distracts from the pressing wish to cope with those critical psychological well being issues.
Looksmaxxing has existed as an web subculture for years however has long gone mainstream for the reason that early 2020s.
A blast from the previous
The looksmaxxing pattern repeats some troubling historical past.
A an identical ideology emerged within the 2000s, however it was once embraced and popularized essentially by way of younger girls and women. Microblogging and social networking platforms like Tumblr and MySpace changed into hotbeds for recommendation on disordered dining.
Customers evolved communities the place they might percentage guidelines and inspire dining disorder-related conduct – as an example, proscribing dining, inducing vomiting or hiding weight reduction from family members. This content material was once tagged “pro-ana” (pro-anorexia), “pro-mia” (pro-bulimia), or “pro-ED” (pro-eating dysfunction).
Mainstream media, together with “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2001, lined the phenomenon of pro-eating dysfunction web communities with an air of grim fear. Exploring how on-line pro-eating dysfunction communities affected women and younger girls briefly changed into a space of study for social scientists and scientific execs.
Nonetheless, it took till 2012 for Tumblr, an extremely well-liked web site for those communities, to put into effect a coverage banning pro-eating dysfunction content material and warn customers in regards to the risks of dining issues. This was once a part of a bigger effort by way of the platform to curb self-harm-related running a blog.
Now, in 2026, nearly all social media platforms have steadily up to date insurance policies or “community guidelines” that intention to forestall such communities from forming and that as a substitute direct customers to useful assets.
Along with tips that limit specific pro-eating dysfunction content material, Instagram and TikTok have devoted pages about getting lend a hand for dining issues. Meta has a coverage web page detailing its rationale and observe round “suicide, self injury and eating disorders” – as does Pinterest, which additionally banned all weight reduction commercials in 2021 in an ongoing dedication to person protection.
Underpathologizing younger males
Regardless of the standard popularity that dining disorder-related content material is damaging to psychological and bodily well being, looksmaxxing has but to be addressed by way of social media platform insurance policies. As an alternative, distinguished looksmaxxers are handled as web celebrities and feature been interviewed and profiled for his or her strategies and worldview.
The language and positioning used for every state of affairs is most likely one issue. “Pro-ED” refers at once to a psychological well being dysfunction. Fresh analysis argues that looksmaxxing, in contrast, is situated as goal-oriented and in that method can masquerade as self-improvement.
Nonetheless, what I in my opinion imagine the key distinction between those actions is gender. Looksmaxxing is essentially geared toward younger males, whilst “pro-ED” web tradition has targeted round younger girls.
Researchers estimate that 1 in 3 folks suffering with dining issues are male. Alternatively, the normal view that dining issues are a woman’s and girls’s sickness lingers in each societal working out and healthcare.
Reshaping the jawline or cheekbones by way of smashing them with a hammer or chisel, a tradition known as bonesmashing, is an extremely excessive way that some teenager boys and younger males use to check out to very best their look.
Chris Delmas/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
A 2025 research of revealed research underscored this discrepancy. It discovered that obsession with thinness remains to be extensively thought to be the hallmark of an dining dysfunction, although it simplest captures one kind – essentially feminine – of the situation. Boys and males who battle with dining issues and frame dysmorphia are a long way much more likely to be fixated on leanness – that means attaining an “ideal” or “perfect” ratio of muscle to fats.
For the reason that even scientific screenings do a deficient process accounting for a way this dysfunction seems in boys and younger males, it’s no wonder that folks, academics and the media additionally fall brief in making this difference.
A scientific tackle looksmaxxing
Noticed via a correct scientific lens, looksmaxxing behaviors obviously resemble attainable signs of dining issues and frame dysmorphia. Starting with an intense fixation on bodily flaws, the observe encourages prioritizing look above all else.
This mindset frequently results in movements to proper those perceived shortcomings. In a scientific environment, psychological well being professionals name such movements compulsions – behaviors that really feel inconceivable to withstand – are fueled by way of obsessive ideas and sooner or later start to intervene with an individual’s talent to steer a typical, wholesome lifestyles.
As an example, some movements like dressed in make-up or hanging lifts in sneakers to look taller aren’t dangerous in and of themselves, and will also be recommended in the event that they make folks really feel extra assured. However now not with the ability to depart the home or serve as with out those corrective measures signifies an issue. In a similar way, editing vitamin or workout to lose fats or achieve muscle will also be relatively wholesome, however abusing amphetamines to suppress urge for food – a standard observe in looksmaxxing – is bad and issues to a psychological well being factor.
Those behaviors deserve exploration as a result of if left untreated, frame dysmorphia and dining issues may have lifelong implications. Early detection and intervention are key, as those issues considerably carry the chance of bodily and psychological well being problems, together with middle issues, lasting pores and skin adjustments, gastrointestinal headaches, melancholy and suicide.
As with every psychological well being issues, how society frames an issue shapes its reaction to it. Web platforms’ and researchers’ responses to the web tradition surrounding dining issues again within the 2010s set a precious precedent. The use of that precedent to answer looksmaxxing now not simply as a cultural factor however as a scientific one may just lend a hand researchers know how dining issues and frame dysmorphia manifest otherwise in boys and younger males.
It will additionally push social media corporations to create suitable tips round looksmaxxing content material, lend a hand folks acknowledge caution indicators and attach suffering boys and younger males to the care they want and deserve.
In case you or any person you realize may just have the benefit of chatting with a consultant in male dining issues or different psychological well being issues, seek the listing on the Nationwide Consuming Issues Affiliation or the boys’s psychological well being group HeadsUpGuys.
In case you or any person you realize is in disaster and is based totally within the U.S., name the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline to talk with a educated listener, or textual content HELLO to 741741. Each products and services are loose, to be had 24/7 and confidential. If you’re a reader from outdoor the U.S., please use a helpline like the only above (Psychology Lately maintains a listing of assets in different international locations) or talk to a healthcare skilled.
