The 2010s are so back. Whether it is the return of King Kylie or Icona Pop’s 2012 hit “I Love It” trending on TikTok, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are obsessed.
Unfortunately, one of the trends that has made its daunting return to the For You Pages of many young people is the thigh gap, this time under the title “leggings legs.” Whatever that means.
Back in the day, the thigh gap trends told young women that they needed to be able to drop something through their thighs when they were sitting down. If you stood with your feet together, you were supposed to still be able to see in between the thighs. Legging legs are a bit more ambiguous. They seem to be categorized by more of an ambiguous aesthetic quality but it comes down to the same principles.
Legging legs are definitely on the thin side with a “pleasing” shape to them. The thigh gap does often come included in the whole “legging legs” package and let’s just say that older Gen Z and millennials are not happy about its unwanted comeback.
Several people have taken to the internet to point out the similarities between the two trends, talking about how much the need to have a thigh gap destroyed their body image and self-worth as a teenager or young woman. Some have even said that trying to control the shape of their legs and bodies in that way gave them and other girls that they knew an eating disorder.
According to Harvard Health, there has been a notable rise in eating disorders among teens and children in the past few years. As per their data, one in five women will experience eating disorders before the age of forty. According to Andrea Vazzana in her interview with ABC News, increased use of social media and the age at which young kids are joining certain social platforms could correlate with the increase in younger people being affected by eating disorders. The Center for Countering Digital Hate even found that within the first 10 minutes of a thirteen-year-old accessing social media, the teen was being recommended content that could lead to eating disorders.
Needless to say, trends like this are causing certain creators to perk up their antennas since they’re seeing a lot of similarities between legging legs and the trends that sparked their body image issues. TikTok does have settings that allow users to filter certain content and keywords like this, but it can still be difficult to sidestep this harmful fad or avoid falling victim to its influence, especially when it comes to young teens.