Looksmaxxing: What Parents of Boys Should Know

For decades, the crushing weight of appearance pressure fell mostly on girls, and parents learned — imperfectly, gradually — to watch for it. The uncomfortable news from clinicians is that a version of it has now arrived for boys, packaged as self-improvement and delivered through the same phones. It’s called looksmaxxing, and if you have a son between about 12 and 19, there’s a good chance he’s already seen more of it than you have.

This isn’t a reason to panic, and some of what travels under the label is harmless or even healthy. But the trend’s origins, and where its sharper edges lead, are worth understanding before you talk to your child about it — and talking about it is the single thing clinicians most recommend.

Key takeaways

• Looksmaxxing — “maximising” your looks — went mainstream on TikTok and Instagram, but it originated in incel forums built on the idea that male worth is fixed by physical appearance.
• It spans a spectrum: “softmaxxing” (skincare, exercise, diet) is mostly benign; “hardmaxxing” (growth hormones, cosmetic surgery, and worse) is genuinely dangerous.
• Rating forums and AI face-scoring tools expose boys — some as young as 13 — to harsh criticism that can feed depression, social anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder.
• Warning signs: sharply increased grooming and mirror time, new irritability, and a spike in social media use together.
• The recommended response is curiosity, not confiscation: open conversations, looking at the content together, positive male role models, and professional help for the extremes.

---

What it is, and where it came from

Looksmaxxing began nearly a decade ago in incel forums, built on the belief that romantic success is determined almost entirely by physical appearance — and that men should therefore “maximise” their looks. Those communities developed an elaborate machinery of self-assessment, including rating scales that grade faces from “subhuman” to “Chad” on measurements like jaw size, eye shape and body-fat percentage.

During the pandemic the aesthetic went mainstream, merging into the broader “manosphere” on TikTok and Instagram and mutating into a competition among boys themselves — including “mog-offs”, contests where faces are compared by facial-analysis software to decide who is better looking. The reach is wide: in a study of more than 3,000 young men aged 16–25 in the US, UK and Australia, nearly two-thirds were regularly engaging with masculinity influencers.

The practices sort into two rough tiers. Softmaxxing covers skincare routines, haircuts, exercise and high-protein diets. Hardmaxxing covers growth hormones, cosmetic surgery, and extreme practices promoted by fringe influencers — up to and including “bonesmashing” (striking facial bones with hard objects in the false hope of reshaping them) and drug use to stay lean. The extremes are a small minority, but they are algorithmically loud: dangerous content earns engagement.

Why clinicians are concerned

The core problem isn’t the skincare. It’s the pipeline — from a face-rating video, to a forum where boys as young as 13 post photos of themselves to be scored by strangers, to a worldview in which their value is a number derived from their jawline.

Alnardo Martinez, a mental health counsellor at the Child Mind Institute in New York, notes that self-esteem is already fragile during puberty, and that boys often deny caring about any of this — until, months later, it emerges that they’re spending long stretches at the mirror chasing an image. Rating forums are “generally places where people are already pretty harsh and critical”, he says; boys come away with “confirmation” of perceived flaws, which feeds negative self-talk, worsens social anxiety and depression, and — for boys with body dysmorphic disorder — can seriously aggravate symptoms. There’s a particular cruelty in the mechanism: a boy anxious about his nose asks the internet, and the internet contains trolls.

It’s worth saying clearly: a teenage boy taking up weightlifting, eating better, or acquiring a five-step skincare routine is not in crisis, and treating ordinary self-care as a red flag will close down exactly the conversations you want open. Young men interviewed about the trend often describe the moderate end as a source of agency and confidence during the chaos of puberty. The line is obsession — and the ideology underneath.

Warning signs

Martinez points to a cluster worth watching for, especially together:

• A marked shift in grooming time — the boy who used to run out the door unwashed now spending long, anxious sessions in the bathroom and repeatedly asking how he looks
• A change in temperament, particularly new irritability — unhappiness with appearance leaks out as a shorter fuse
• A spike in social media use alongside the above

Any extreme practice — bonesmashing, steroid or hormone use, severe dietary restriction (“starvemaxxing”) — is a now-problem, not a watch-and-wait problem.

How to respond

The advice from the Child Mind Institute and Internet Matters converges on the same playbook:

1. Open with curiosity, not alarm. “Have you heard about this? What do you think of it?” gets you further than a lecture. Give him room to say something real, and validate what comes back — most of what drives this is a feeling nearly everyone recognises, of wishing something about ourselves were different.
2. Look at the actual content together. Ask where he’s getting his information, read or watch it with him, and talk about what it’s selling and what the dangerous practices actually do. This treats him as someone capable of judgement — which is the self-image you want to reinforce.
3. Line up male role models. Boys often feel a mother can’t relate to male body-image pressure, however sympathetic she is. An older brother, uncle, coach or family friend who can speak from experience — including about his own insecurities — can reach where parents can’t.
4. Get professional help for the extremes. If your son is engaging in hardmaxxing practices, or the fixation is crowding out school, friendships or mood, seek a clinician experienced in body image or body dysmorphic disorder. This is a treatable pattern, and earlier is easier.

The larger project, as ever, is the slow one: normalising talk about insecurity, distinguishing realistic change from dangerous change, and making sure that the loudest voice in your son’s head about his own worth isn’t an algorithm’s.

---

If your child talks about self-harm or suicide, seek help now: in the US, call or text 988; in the UK, Samaritans on 116 123 or Childline on 0800 1111.

Sources: Child Mind Institute — Looksmaxxing and Its Impact on Boys (2026); Internet Matters — What is looksmaxxing? Guidance for parents.