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Punishing regimens of facial exercises. Intentional starvation. Reshaping the jawline or cheekbones by smashing them with a hammer or chisel . These are some of the more extreme behaviors in a practice called looksmaxxing – an effort to maximize one’s looks at all costs – that’s attracting an enormous following of largely teenage boys and young men on social media. Looksmaxxing has gone from niche to mainstream since trending on TikTok in the early 2020s . Much of the media coverage of looksmaxxing has focused on cultural dimensions , such as the misogynist ideology underlying this trend and its implications for cultural conversations about masculinity . Meanwhile, looksmaxxers with an especially large following of hundreds of thousands of people on social media platforms like TikTok and Kick have attained pop-culture status. But in the midst of this spectacle, the well-being of the young men participating in this trend has been largely overlooked. From my perspective as a mental health professional studying how people think and talk about emotions and mental health, the behaviors associated with looksmaxxing look suspiciously like symptoms of eating disorders and body dysmorphia, also called body dysmorphic disorder . These disorders are especially harmful to young people who are in the throes of figuring out who they are, what they want and how to navigate relationships – efforts already complicated by the pressures of social media . In my view, platforming these young men and sensationalizing their behaviors, rather than recognizing those behaviors as signs of psychological distress, distracts from the urgent need to address these serious mental health concerns. A blast from the past The looksmaxxing trend repeats some troubling history. A similar ideology emerged in the 2000s , but it was embraced and popularized primarily by young women and girls. Microblogging and social networking platforms like Tumblr and MySpace became hotbeds for advice on disordered eating . Users developed communities where they could share tips and encourage eating disorder-related behavior – for example, restricting eating, inducing vomiting or hiding weight loss from loved ones. This content was tagged “pro-ana” (pro-anorexia), “pro-mia” (pro-bulimia), or “pro-ED” (pro-eating disorder). Mainstream media, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2001 , covered the phenomenon of pro-eating disorder internet communities with an air of grim concern. Exploring how online pro-eating disorder communities affected girls and young women quickly became an area of research for social scientists and medical professionals . Still, it took until 2012 for Tumblr, an especially popular site for these communities, to implement a policy banning pro-eating disorder content and warn users about the dangers of eating disorders . This was part of a larger effort by the platform to curb self-harm-related blogging. Now, in 2026, almost all social media platforms have regularly updated policies or “community guidelines” that aim to prevent such communities from forming and that instead direct users to helpful resources. In addition to guidelines that prohibit explicit pro-eating disorder content, Instagram and TikTok have dedicated pages about getting help for eating disorders. Meta has a policy page detailing its rationale and practice around “suicide, self injury and eating disorders” – as does Pinterest , which also banned all weight loss ads in 2021 in an ongoing commitment to user safety. Underpathologizing young men Despite the widespread recognition that eating disorder-related content is harmful to mental and physical health, looksmaxxing has yet to be addressed by social media platform policies. Instead, prominent looksmaxxers are treated as internet celebrities and have been interviewed and profiled for their methods and worldview . The language and positioning used for each scenario is likely one factor. “Pro-ED” refers directly to a mental health disorder. Recent research argues that looksmaxxing, by contrast, is positioned as goal-oriented and in that way can masquerade as self-improvement. Still, what I personally consider the major difference between these movements is gender. Looksmaxxing is primarily aimed at young men, while “pro-ED” internet culture has centered around young women. Researchers estimate that 1 in 3 people struggling with eating disorders are male . However, the traditional view that eating disorders are a girl’s and women’s illness lingers in both societal understanding and healthcare. A 2025 analysis of published studies underscored this discrepancy. It found that obsession with thinness is still widely considered the hallmark of an eating disorder , even though it only captures one type – primarily female – of the condition. Boys and men who struggle with eating disorders and body dysmorphia are far more likely to be fixated on leanness – meaning achieving an “ideal” or “perfect” ratio of muscle to fat. Given that even clinical screenings do a poor job accounting for how this disorder appears in boys and young men, it’s no surprise that parents, teachers and the media also fall short in making this distinction.