We hear a lot about the return of ‘90s skinny’ and ‘00s diet culture’. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this narrative. I don’t think either of these things ever really went away. If anything, fatphobia feels worse today than it did a decade ago. The language might have changed, and it might be dressed up in different aesthetics, but the underlying contempt for fat bodies remains as rampant as ever.
Case in point: two new AI filters currently doing the rounds on TikTok. Their names? ‘Chubby Filter AI’ and ‘Skinny Filter AI’ – a masterclass in creativity. Both are available through the video editing platform CapCut, which is affiliated with TikTok. Thousands of videos already exist using these filters, with predictable and depressing results.
Slim people using the ‘chubby filter’ have racked up tens of thousands of likes, with captions like: ‘ffs shouldn’t have had that takeaway last night,’ ‘one of us has self-control, the other has Deliveroo on speed dial,’ or ‘me if I don’t lock in and go gym’. Just in case the message wasn’t clear enough, this trend is laced with the most unsubtle fatphobia imaginable, mockery disguised as a joke, thinness upheld as the ultimate goal.
The ‘skinny filter’ follows the same logic, just in reverse. One user captioned her video ‘seeing how I’d look skinny for motivation’. In the comments? ‘From 3/10 to 10/10’ and ‘the potential’. Some accounts are using the filter on people who haven’t consented, including a video of content creator Becki Jones, who left TikTok over the weekend due to relentless bullying about her weight.
'The underlying contempt for fat bodies remains as rampant as ever.'
This isn’t just some harmless TikTok fad. It’s a symptom of a wider problem, one that continues to frame fat bodies as a cautionary tale while celebrating thinness as aspirational. And yet, there seems to be genuine confusion about why these filters are causing backlash. In response to videos explaining why the ‘chubby filter’ is wrong, comments like ‘girls, there’s literally a skinny filter going around and people are encouraging it, we can’t have these double standards’ have appeared.
This ‘take’ is completely misguided. Yes, both filters are unacceptable, but they are not being used in the same way. One is a tool to mock fat people, the other is being used for bodychecking and self-congratulation. Hundreds of videos using the ‘skinny filter’ feature people who are already slim, the filter barely changes them. They’re posting these videos as a celebration. The reverse is not happening.
This is a well-worn pushback. Every time fatphobia is called out, someone inevitably brings up ‘skinny shaming’ as a counterpoint. ‘They’re both as bad as each other’ is the usual refrain. But this is a false equivalence. Body shaming of any kind is wrong, yes, but pretending that skinny shaming is as prevalent or as systemic as fatphobia is simply untrue. One is the beauty standard. The other is used as an excuse to de-humanise people.
Fatphobia isn’t just a ‘mean comments on TikTok’ issue, it has real-world consequences. A []{href='https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/primary-health-care-research-and-development/article/weight-bias-and-health-care-utilization-a-scoping-review/1FC4C7CF66473AB6CFB6ED5AD2C8DD43' }2019 study found 19% of people with an obese BMI had avoided medical appointments due to fears they would be mistreated because of their weight. Another study, []{href='https://britishlivertrust.org.uk/weight-uks-most-common-discrimination/#:~
This isn’t a question of personal sensitivity; it’s about systemic bias. Fat people receive worse medical care, are less likely to be hired, and are routinely devalued in society. And yet, when discussions about weight stigma come up, there’s a knee-jerk reaction to reframe the conversation around ‘but what about skinny people?’ as if thinness is a marginalised identity rather than the body type most rewarded under capitalism.
Body shaming must be addressed. It should be socially unacceptable, rather than normalised or laughed off. Especially when you consider that 94% of teenage girls and 64% of teenage boys.){href='https://magnoliacreek.com/resources/blog/body-shaming-eating-disorders/#:~
And let’s be clear, body shaming isn’t about ‘health’, no matter how often that excuse is wheeled out. If health were the real concern, we’d be talking about the barriers fat people face in accessing quality healthcare. We’d be talking about eating disorders, which affect people of all sizes. We’d be talking about the physical and psychological toll of chronic dieting. But we’re not. Because it’s never been about health.
Fatphobia doesn’t just impact fat people. It creates a culture where disordered eating is normalised, where people are constantly pushed to shrink themselves, where self-worth is tied to the number on a scale. The fact that AI filters like ‘Chubby Filter AI’ and ‘Skinny Filter AI’ exist at all tells us everything we need to know about how much work still needs to be done.
Body shaming serves no purpose. It’s not motivational. It’s not constructive. It’s cruelty, plain and simple. And until we start treating it that way, nothing is going to change.