Your 'hot girl stomach issues' might be caused by damaging diet culture, experts say

• People use the phrase "hot girls have stomach issues" to joke about their gastrointestinal problems.

• But there's a reason why it's "hot girls" who are making these jokes.

• Experts says following diet culture could make women more prone to stomach issues.

You've probably heard that hot girls have stomach issues.

It's all over social media — #hotgirlshaveibs has 28.2 million views on TikTok — and it's been written about by media outlets including Insider.

Anyone can be a "hot girl." It's not about looking a certain way, or fitting certain beauty standards, but more about having confidence in yourself, and is part of the recent reclamation of the word "girl," which has been used to demean women in the past.

So some "hot girls" joke about their experiences with IBS, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, gas, and stomach pain on social media, in an attempt to normalize "gross" bodily functions that women have traditionally been expected to stay quiet about.

But why do hot girls have stomach issues?

The fact that #hotgirlshavestomachissues is blocked on TikTok provides a clue. Instead of showing videos of young women talking about their constipation, IBS, and bloating, searching the phrase takes you to a landing page with links to resources to help with eating disorders.

Far from being a mistake with TikTok's content filters, this apparent assumption that people searching for #hotgirlshavestomachissues may also have food issues is backed up by research and eating disorder experts. They say that diet culture — which encourages fad dieting and cutting out foods in favor of "clean eating," and glorifies thinness over health — could be the cause of a lot of people's gastrointestinal issues, whether or not they have diagnosed eating disorders.

Eating disorders can cause stomach issues

Research shows that between 42% and 98% of patients in eating disorder treatment units have gastrointestinal issues.

Dr. Kyle Staller, a gastroenterologist and director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, who researches the interactions between eating disorders and the gastrointestinal system, told Insider that the most common stomach issues that eating disorder patients experience are dyspepsia (which is discomfort after eating in the form of pain or an abnormal sense of fullness), bloating and distension, lower abdominal pain, IBS, and constipation.

"Restricting your diet, binging and purging, making yourself vomit for weight loss, and abusing laxatives slows down your gastrointestinal system" and changes the species and processes of bacteria in the gut that help to digest food, he said. This can mean that even if a person reintroduces certain foods, the body can have a harder time digesting them, which can then manifest as stomach issues.

Lauryn Lax, a health coach based in Texas, who struggled with anorexia, told Insider that "it's a running joke that everyone in eating disorder treatment has gas and is on Colace and Miralax," because eating disorders turn your gut into a "wasteland."

Disordered eating can damage the digestive system, too

Obviously, not all women with stomach issues have eating disorders, but there's a spectrum of "disordered eating" that can affect gastrointestinal health, too, Erin Birely, a licensed clinical professional counselor at the US-based eating disorder treatment provider the Renfrew Center, told Insider.

Disordered eating is any behavior that deviates from "normalized eating," Birely said, which can include designating foods as "good" or "bad," or not allowing yourself to have certain foods based on strict, debilitating rules that are meant to control your weight and body shape.

And just like you don't have to be diagnosed with an eating disorder for your eating to be disordered, you also don't have to have engaged in extreme behaviors for your eating habits to affect your gastrointestinal health.

Staller said that although purging or vomiting may sound particularly harmful, people who significantly restrict their calories are actually more likely to have gastrointestinal issues. What amounts to significant restriction varies from person to person, he said, but generally means eating so few calories that the body has an abnormally low BMI.

And restricting calories is very common in women and girls because they are more likely to diet to try to achieve a certain weight or body shape.

'Hot girls' are more likely to have stomach issues because they are 'hot' and 'girls'

Staller said that women are more likely to have gastrointestinal issues than men because of hormonal fluctuations due to menstruation and gynecological issues, such as endometriosis, which cisgender men don't have.

But social and psychological factors play a part, too, Staller said. Women are generally more likely to eat in disordered ways because of a "desire for thinness" or in order to "have the ideal shape."

There's also the "dangerous intersection between concern about appearance and health and wellness," she said. This leads influencers to promote diets that appear healthy because they only include foods which are seen as "good" — but which are actually incredibly restricted in variety.

Lax gave the example of fad diets such as "clean eating," which can lead a person to unnecessarily remove an entire food group in the name of "health."

So hot girls might have stomach issues because their bodies are biologically more susceptible to gastrointestinal issues, but also because they are more likely to have restricted their diet in order to be what society deems "hot."

Hot girls' stomach problems shouldn't be normalized

Staller said that some bloating, constipation, and discomfort is normal, especially around a person's periods, and so not all stomach issues are a cause for concern.

However, if your stomach issues are impacting your quality of life, such as stopping you from going out to eat with your friends, or your diet starts to have medical consequences, you should see a medical professional, he said.

Birely has a hopeful message for hot girls with stomach issues experiencing disordered eating: "There is a very large amount of hope that things can resolve with consistent nourishment and nutrition, especially the gastrointestinal discomfort."

So although some hot girls do have stomach issues, it's not necessarily something they should have to put up with.

Read the original article on Insider