“Bigorexia” Pushed On Social Media

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Mental Health, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Young men wanting to be muscle influencers but using performance enhancement drugs say they are suffering from “bigorexia” or muscle dysmorphia. Is social media to blame?

According to a recent study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, there have been 420 million views of videos on Tik Tok pushing steroids to teens. Some experts say that trend is creating young men to develop "bigorexia," or muscle dysmorphia. Senior anchor for News on Merit Street investigates on how easy it is for teens to order illegal performance enhancement drugs online. Ryan says he was able to get these drugs online when he started bodybuilding to follow in his father, Shawn’s, footsteps. He started posting his journey online and developed a huge following. At just 16 years old, Ryan says his muscle gains plateaued. So he found another way to get to superhero status until he went blind. Plus, we meet Colton who says he’s using steroids now and looking to launch himself to internet stardom at whatever cost. But his fiancée Alex says she wants Colton to stop using steroids because it turns him into an angry person full of rage. And Callum Hood, head researcher at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, tells Dr. Phil about the study he led focusing on how Tik Tok videos promote steroid-like drugs. And Dr. Thomas O’Connor is a board-certified doctor of internal medicine and professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He's also known as the “Anabolic Doc” who knows firsthand what it’s like to be addicted to performance enhancement drugs.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	420 million views of videos pushing steroids to the young viewers.
0:07.0	How easy was it for you to get a hold of these songs?
0:10.0	I just had to click on a link that had them to my cart, check them out.
0:14.0	I said, what the hell are you doing? You gotta get off this stuff.
0:16.0	I'm gonna be on testosterone the rest of your life.
0:18.0	You woke up one morning and thought, hell, I'm gonna blind.
0:21.2	Is there anything that anybody could say to you
0:23.7	that would get you off of these drugs?
0:25.4	No.
0:26.2	No.
0:31.2	Well, you know, men are likely to build their bodies to draw the attention of women.
0:41.3	Although jewelry tattoos, makeup, and fancy clothes are on the rise,
0:46.3	this is what I call the Peacock Syndrome.
0:50.3	Just watch bodybuilders strut their stuff on social media.
0:55.5	And teenage boys throughout the country are fueling this trend by lapping up videos from fit fluencers
1:04.0	who are pushing unregulated performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, targeting these young wannabe bodybuilders. Now, how bad is that?
1:15.9	According to a recent study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, in the past three years,
1:23.0	they found 420 million views
1:28.3	of videos pushing steroids to these young viewers.
1:33.3	Now listen up.
1:35.3	Algorithms are not our friends.
1:39.3	They don't care about your child.
	...

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