As I scroll through social media each day, I’m exposed to hundreds of different videos and posts. Most of the time when I go on Instagram or TikTok, I do it to laugh and entertain myself, but sometimes I’m exposed to something much darker.
Parents and adults are often concerned with children being exposed to drugs, alcohol, crime, and gore. Truthfully, I come across these topics on social media far less than others. Somehow, the most common topic I come across is food. More specifically, dieting.
Every other video I see is “Don’t eat this, eat this,” or “Why eat this, when you can eat this,” or “This is what 500 calories of chocolate looks like compared to 500 calories of broccoli.”
The University of California San Diego (UCSD) says diet culture prioritizes thinness and appearance over health. UCSD says that diet culture “places importance on restricting calories, normalizes negative self-talk, and labels certain foods as ‘good’ and ‘bad.’”
Diet culture spreads the idea that everybody must be striving towards being thin and having the “perfect” body. It idolizes unrealistic beauty standards that are especially harmful for developing teens.
A study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that body dissatisfaction is one of the most common mental health issues among adolescents, and social media is a top contributor. Teens are trying to attain a body they saw on social media that could be edited in the first place, and this makes them dissatisfied with their
own, real body. These effects of diet culture can lead to lower self-esteem and poorer mental health, according to the Eating Disorder Hope website.
Diet culture grasps the attention of teens by suggesting quick fixes that will give them society’s image of a perfect body. These quick hacks can include diet pills, detox teas, and extreme fasting protocols.
While most, if not all, of these hacks are dangerous, the one that concerns me the most is the constant need to replace any food that isn’t inherently nutritious with a healthy alternative.
Obviously we should all be incorporating fruit, vegetables, protein, and other foods we often label as healthy into our diets, but diet culture takes this to an extreme level.
Diet culture videos on social media convince teens that they can’t and shouldn’t be eating any unhealthy food because they could be eating a plate of vegetables with the same amount of calories instead. I’ve seen videos suggesting that lettuce chips taste the exact same as potato chips, which is obviously not true.
Eating these alternatives isn’t dangerous in itself as the alternatives provided are often “healthy” foods, but I find this aspect of diet culture so concerning because it programs teens to think that certain foods are bad. Social media tells teens they should never eat ice cream or chocolate because they could be eating something healthier.
Convincing teens to label certain genres of foods as bad could spiral into a much bigger problem. It could lead to food aversions and eating disorders that are extremely difficult to overcome. We have to stop trying to convince people on social media that their diet should only be made up of “healthy” foods because this lifestyle is exhausting and unsustainable.
While there are many influencers who promote diet culture, I’ve found that there are also many influencers who spread body positivity and advocate against extreme dieting. Go out of your way to search for these influencers and even follow them. Having these body positive videos on your feed can help you adopt the same mindset. Seeing influencers post their real bodies that weren’t attained through extreme dieting could help you learn to love your real body, too.
Being a certain size doesn’t help you achieve happiness. If you want to prioritize loving yourself and enjoying your life, you can start by changing the narrative of what you watch on social media.
