The social media platform, which is popular with teenagers, acted after a Pharmaceutical Journal investigation found that users were being offered prescription drugs as diet pills. The magazine found that ads for epilepsy, alcohol and drugs of addiction and migraine were pushed to a TikTok user despite being registered as a girl under the age of 16. An appetite suppressant called phentermine, and products based on it, were the prescription drugs most frequently cited in the publications. Phentermine is not licensed in the UK. During 90 minutes spent viewing the results of the platform, the magazine found that 31 of the 100 most popular posts promoted the use of diet pills for people who want to lose weight. But health experts said this was “totally inappropriate” for people of any age and could cause harm. Some of the drugs introduced by TikTok have been linked to birth defects and other serious side effects. “Nutrition claims that are unrealistic and not supported by evidence-based science on social media can be dangerous no matter what age you are. But for under-16s they can have very real consequences,” said the British Dietetic Association. John Wilding, professor of medicine at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, said another of the drugs for sale – topiramate, which is used to treat epilepsy and migraine – “has never been approved for weight loss in the EU or United Kingdom as it has some important potential side effects’, including the risk of harm to unborn children and babies. A TikTok spokesperson said: “Our community guidelines make it clear that we do not allow the promotion or trade of controlled substances, including prescription weight loss drugs, and we will remove content that violates these policies.” The magazine said TikTok removed some but not all of the videos it found. It had revised the hashtag “diet pills” and also banned “multiple accounts” selling weight loss drugs. TikTok also came under fire on Wednesday for allowing cannabis-based sweets shaped to look like bags of Haribos and Skittles to be sold on its site. The Children’s Society’s annual assessment of the state of children’s wellbeing across the UK has found that increasing numbers of girls are unhappy with their appearance. The proportion of girls aged 10 to 15 who expressed dissatisfaction with their appearance has risen from one in seven (15%) in 2015 to almost one in five (18%) – which the charity called a “worrying jump”. That means around 411,000 of them feel that way, it said in its latest Good Childhood report. Far fewer boys – 10% – expressed such unhappiness. Research by the Children’s Society, based on analysis collected from 2,100 children whose families take part in the long-running Understanding Society programme, also found that: Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Many more (12%) say they are unhappy at school, a 3% increase on 10 years ago, with older children more likely to hold this view.
“It is desperately worrying that children’s wellbeing is in this state of decline, with huge numbers unhappy with school and thousands of girls struggling with their appearance,” said Mark Russell, the charity’s chief executive. He urged ministers to speed up the development of mental health support teams in schools in England and to set up “early support hubs” across the country to help under-18s with mental health problems.
