Why young men are 'starvemaxxing' to look like their chiseled, masculine idols

With his dark brown eyes, chiseled jawline, and seemingly perfectly symmetrical face, Brazilian supermodel Francisco Lachowski has long been admired for his looks, which have won him legions of fans around the world.

But the 32-year-old, who has 2.1 million Instagram followers, had no idea he’d come to be idolized by a subset of teenage boys and young men known as looksmaxxers.

These young men use various methods — ranging from skincare routines to particular ways of holding their faces, to aesthetic surgery and extreme dieting called “starvemaxxing” — in the hope of forming stronger jawlines and an angular, masculine facial structure.

Lachowski and fellow supermodel Jordan Barrett, as well as a young Brad Pitt, who share sought-after physical features, are among those held up as aspirational in looksmaxxing TikToks.

“I was completely unaware of that,” Lachowski, who is based in Brazil, told Business Insider in November 2023.

Although looksmaxxing is separate from incel culture, which “manosphere” creators have spread to the wider internet, followers of both share the belief that attractiveness is paramount for being deemed worthy and that women choose men based on looks above all else.

And while looksmaxxer TikTok influencers who spoke to BI gave reassurances that practices such as starvemaxxing are mostly a joke, disturbing online forum posts tell a different story. Experts worry that in the pursuit of attracting women (as the movement mostly, if not entirely, appears to be made up of cis, hetero men) and appearing more masculine, young men are on a slippery slope, potentially destroying their physical and mental health while trying to achieve the impossible goal of looking like someone else.

'Looksmaxxing' exploded on TikTok in the past year

Looksmaxxing has existed on the internet for a long time. BI found threads on dedicated forums dating back to 2018, with up to 3,000 replies on each post about how to achieve “hollow cheeks,” grow thicker hair, and lose body fat.

But looksmaxxing has blown up on social media over the past year, with views for the hashtag on TikTok reaching over 6 billion.

Kareem Shami, who is 22 and based in San Diego, is one of looksmaxxing's biggest creators. His dark, brooding eyes and model good looks have helped him to gain over a million followers under the username "syrianpsycho" on TikTok, where he shares “glow up” videos detailing how, he says, he chiseled his soft face, and provides advice for anyone else looking to do the same.

In an interview with BI, he agreed that looksmaxxing appears to have found a new, larger audience on TikTok over the past year, but said it’s on a “very huge spectrum.” His videos focus on “softmaxxing,” which includes maintaining general hygiene, using skincare products, and going to the gym.

Slang terms such as “mewing” — or holding your tongue to the roof of your mouth to "improve" your side profile — and “hunter eyes” have cropped up on TikTok over the past year, promising to produce a pronounced chin and a seductive gaze. The term “mogging” — looking down on anyone who isn’t as good-looking or muscular as you — has also become more popular.

“Hardmaxxing,” meanwhile, includes “more extreme ways of going about the way you look,” Shami said, such as getting fillers, botox, and plastic surgery, which he denies having.

'Starvemaxxers' eat as little as possible

On the other end of the spectrum, particularly on looksmaxxing forums, lie more extreme, potentially dangerous methods for achieving the desired look, including starvemaxxing, where calories are dropped dangerously low. On TikTok, videos under the hashtag #starvemaxxing have 8 million views, making it a niche but growing community.

TikTok’s terms of service state the platform does not allow videos “showing or promoting disordered eating or any dangerous weight loss behaviors." TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Those who take the trends most seriously are at greater risk of subscribing to some of the more controversial ideas linked to looksmaxxing, Shami said, including incel culture, and trollish behavior that could lead to tragic results. The slang term “ropemaxxing,” for example, means pushing someone to suicide to be “reborn” as less ugly.

“I would say on TikTok so far it is more like a satire, kind of jokey thing,” Shami said. In one of his own popular videos, he said he was on “day 13” of the “Jordan Barrett diet,” which consisted of “just oxygen.”

Starvemaxxing, in Shami’s opinion, is real, but isn’t as intense as it sounds. “Starvemaxxing isn't actually starving yourself,” he said. “It means you're cutting down in attempts to reach a very low body fat percentage to look better in the face.”

But some users on looksmaxxing forums say they eat as little as possible in the hope of having an angular appearance like Lachowski.

On one looksmaxxer subreddit, a user asked in December 2023: “How many calories do you guys eat a day for more hollow cheeks and how often do you starvemaxx?”

“1500 calories a day max,” another user replied.

In a post on another looksmaxxer forum dated April 2023, a user said they “need help” with starvemaxxing.

“Been making myself throw up after meals that are too heavy,” they wrote. “Any tips to stay away from food even more please help.”

Another post from July 2022 saw a user describe a day in their starvemaxxing schedule: one cup of Special K cereal, one protein shake, one packet of butter popcorn, and one cup of salmon with soy sauce, totaling 1,300 calories.

While calorie requirements vary from person to person depending on factors including their body size, activity levels, and genetics, to put this into context: a four-year-old boy is estimated to require 1,386 calories a day, while an average 18-year-old needs 3,155, according to the British Nutrition Foundation.

Pediatric dietitian Clare Thornton-Wood told BI that starvemaxxing sounds “very unwise,” adding that “extreme fasting or dieting is a dangerous practice.”

Aside from being risky, their efforts are likely in vain. While cutting calories extremely low may lead to fat loss anywhere on the body, including the face, genetics play a huge role in someone’s facial structure.

There’s no real way to verify whether people claiming to eat extremely little are telling the truth or exaggerating for attention, Elizabeth Daniels, a professor and director of the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England, UK, who specializes in body image issues among young people, told BI.

But she believes such trends are still concerning given that younger social media users may not be able to discern jokes from reality. Even if a handful of boys are starving themselves, that could have serious consequences, she said.

Johan Drumev, who is 19 and lives in Dubai, is another looksmaxxing creator, with around 56,000 TikTok followers. He has a similar look to Shami, with dark hair and eyes and angular facial features. He also shares his transformation from the fresh-faced teen he was at school to an intense-gazed, muscular young man.

Speaking to BI, Drumev agreed with Shami that starvemaxxing is “mostly a joke,” but said some do take part in it to “lose lots of weight rapidly” to “achieve a lean physique or hollow cheeks for a more modelesque look.”

“It can be bad because the looksmaxxing community has lots of young teenagers,” he said. “And some of them might actually take it seriously and starve themselves and ruin their health or just their potential to actually become more attractive.”

Lachowski, who has two young sons, said it’s “disheartening and concerning” to be associated with starvemaxxing, as he encourages all his fans, including junior models, to prioritize a healthy lifestyle with balance and self-care, he said.

“I am deeply saddened to hear that my work has inadvertently influenced such unhealthy behaviors,” Lachowski said.

Young men are becoming more body-conscious

It’s unclear why looksmaxxing has suddenly become popular. But for a long time, public consciousness focused on body image issues among women and girls, Daniels said. The rise of looksmaxxing and starvemaxxing could reflect how such concerns are on the rise among young men, too.

One 2023 report by the UK government, for example, found that 28% of men surveyed had felt anxious about how their bodies looked, while another report from 2022 by University College London suggested body image issues were worsening in both women and men.

It's perhaps unsurprising that body dissatisfaction has increased, considering how often most young people use social media, where the bodies tend to look a particular way and the algorithm shows more of the same, Daniels said.

“If there are younger preteens or early teens who are viewing this content, they don't have the sophistication to realize, ‘Oh, this guy's probably making this up, you can’t get by on a carrot,’” she said.

One post from December 2022 on a popular incel forum, where a user explained his starvemaxxing progress, lays bare what the trend could be doing to young men’s health.

“I can see my cheekbones proper but maybe it’s because I look gaunt,” he said, adding that his knees “hurt like shit” when he walked, and his muscles had been “pulsing.”

Responding to another user asking how he does it, he said it was “just a lot of self-control.”

“The first time it hurts, it feels like ur belly is on fire but you start to get used to it,” he wrote. “Eventually the pain subsides and you feel like not eating. I rarely get hungry anymore.”

Thornton-Wood said extreme fasting has a range of serious consequences including putting a person at risk of developing refeeding syndrome, which can happen after a person who has consumed no or very little food for days or longer starts eating again. If you feed a malnourished person too quickly, severe shifts in the body’s chemistry take place which can cause serious problems in the lungs, heart, brain, and muscles, she said.

“It requires careful management generally in hospital and if not treated can be fatal,” Thornton-Wood said.

Restricting food intake can be particularly dangerous for teens who are still developing, potentially leading to muscle wastage, growth issues, and poor bone health, she said.

“In the shorter term brain function is diminished during periods of fasting as the brain needs a constant supply of glucose,” Thornton-Wood said. “This will decrease performance at school and work and could make you more likely to have an accident.”

For healthy and sustainable weight loss, experts advise a gentle calorie deficit and a diet balanced in protein, carbs, and fat.

From 'looksmaxxing' to 'bonesmashing'

Like anything online, there are “extremes” of the culture, Shami said. He said he wouldn’t recommend anyone under the age of 17 visit the looksmaxxing forums, because that’s where more dangerous trends such as “bonesmashing” — or attempting to break jaw and cheek bones to form a different facial structure — originate, although there is debate over whether this trend was real or not.

Rather, Shami said, teenagers should stick to TikTok where he believes they may be introduced to looksmaxxing methods but are warned away from anything too dangerous.

“I haven't seen bonesmashing on my feed for a while now and I'm glad I made a video actually telling people not to partake in any of that,” Shami said.

“Still, now that I know I have an influence and it's only getting more from here, you have to be careful," he said.

Since BI first spoke with Lachowski, he has become a vocal critic of the looksmaxxing community, speaking on livestreams and podcasts about not wanting to be a role model for unhealthy behaviors. While he holds nothing against individual creators like Shami, and has even invited him onto his streams to talk about looksmaxxing, Lachowski criticizes more extreme parts of the culture.

In one recent stream, for example, he learned of the term “ropemaxxing” and its dark associations.

“People from the looksmaxxing community got to chill, bro,” he said in the stream. “You guys have got to chill. You guys are crossing the line a little bit.”

In turn, looksmaxxers have pushed back, and poked fun at Lachowski for taking it all so seriously.

All the while, lost young men are left to work out what’s real and what’s trolling.