Type “weight loss” into YouTube as a teenager, and within minutes the algorithm will have you watching content that glorifies starvation. Despite promises to do better, it seems not much has changed.
A new study has found that YouTube is still funnelling vulnerable young people towards eating disorder videos, even after the platform introduced rules specifically designed to protect UK teens from harmful content. Researchers created test accounts mimicking the behaviour of adolescent users and found that the recommendation engine consistently served up videos promoting dangerous eating habits, extreme calorie restriction, and thinspiration content.
The findings are particularly damning given that YouTube updated its policies in 2023, pledging to limit recommendations of content that could negatively affect the mental or physical health of younger viewers. Campaigners say the research proves those promises were largely hollow.
“The algorithm doesn’t care about wellbeing, it cares about watch time. Until that incentive changes, these policies are essentially decorative.”
That sentiment, echoed by several researchers involved in the study, cuts to the heart of the problem. YouTube’s recommendation system is built to keep eyes on screens for as long as possible. Content that triggers anxiety, comparison, and obsession tends to do exactly that.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health condition. Around 1.25 million people in the UK are currently living with one, and rates among young people have been rising steadily since 2020. Charities like Beat have repeatedly warned that social media exposure accelerates the onset of disordered eating, particularly in girls aged 13 to 17.
YouTube did not dispute the findings outright, but said in a statement that it continues to “invest in systems to reduce the reach of content that could be harmful to viewers.” It pointed to features like content warnings and the ability for users to clear their watch history.
Critics, unsurprisingly, weren’t satisfied with that response. When a teenager is mid-spiral, a button to clear their history isn’t exactly a safety net.
The Online Safety Act, now coming into force in stages, places new legal duties on platforms to protect children from harmful content. Whether Ofcom will have the teeth, or the appetite, to hold YouTube genuinely accountable remains the real question.
