TikTok has removed a photo filter that allowed users to alter their appearance to look heavier, following a wave of criticism from users, health advocates, and body image researchers who said the effect promoted body shaming. The filter, which was uploaded to TikTok by CapCut, a video editing app that shares a parent company with TikTok through ByteDance, had spread quickly across the platform before the pushback mounted.

How the filter spread and what it looked like

The videos that used the filter followed a consistent format. They typically opened with an unedited image of the creator, generally someone with a slim build, before the filter scrolled down the screen and altered the subject’s body shape. Nearly all of the videos ran alongside Anxiety, a track by Doechii, the American rapper and singer-songwriter. The pairing became so common that the song itself became associated with the trend.

As the videos multiplied, so did the reactions from users who found the format troubling. Comments calling the trend mean-spirited spread across multiple posts, with one such comment drawing more than 5,000 likes. Luna, a health and wellbeing app developed for teenagers, publicly criticized the filter for reinforcing what it described as body shaming and unhealthy beauty standards. A TikTok creator with a large following posted a video criticizing the filter that accumulated more than 100,000 views, arguing that the trend was part of a broader resurgence of diet culture and extreme thinness as an aspirational aesthetic on social media.

TikTok’s response and what it means for the filter

TikTok confirmed to the BBC that it had removed the filter from the app and had begun reviewing videos that featured it. The company said those videos would be made ineligible for recommendation and would be blocked from appearing in accounts belonging to users under 18. A search for the filter on the phone app returned no results after the removal, though the desktop version of TikTok still surfaced some related content at that time.

TikTok attributed the filter’s origin to CapCut, noting that while the two apps share a parent company in ByteDance, they operate as separate entities. The company did not address questions about how a filter from an external developer enters the TikTok ecosystem or what review process, if any, is applied before such effects become widely available.

The wider TikTok filter problem and body image research

The chubby filter is not the first TikTok effect to draw this kind of criticism. The platform has faced repeated scrutiny over beauty filters more broadly, including one that smooths skin and adjusts facial proportions to simulate a younger appearance, which critics have said reinforces ageist standards. TikTok announced in November 2024 that users under 18 would no longer have access to beauty filters following a commissioned report examining their impact on young people.

The research landscape on filters and body image is still developing, but the findings so far point in one direction. A small 2019 study found a link between social media filter use and greater openness to cosmetic surgery. A 2021 analysis published through Harvard Business Review found that people who felt confident about their appearance were sometimes more unsettled by digitally enhanced versions of their faces than people who already had existing insecurities, suggesting that filters do not affect only those with low self-esteem.

The chubby filter stood out from most beauty-adjacent effects because its premise was not flattery but transformation in the other direction, which users found harder to dismiss as harmless fun. The hundreds of filters available on TikTok include plenty that are genuinely playful, such as those that add animal features to a face. The chubby filter occupied different territory, and the response to its removal suggests many users understood the distinction clearly.