5 Signs A Social Media Account is Promoting Diet Culture
Written by Isabel Vasquez RD, LDN
It’s no secret that social media sparks body image issues for many people and promotes unhealthy comparisons about food, exercise, and appearance. That’s why carefully curating your social media feed can go a long way in improving your body image and relationship with food.
How do you decide which accounts to follow or unfollow?
Sometimes, diet-centric accounts are sneaky and subtle. You might feel something is off but not be able to pinpoint the way these accounts are promoting diet culture. In this article, learn five warning signs that an account is diet-centric and probably harmful to your food freedom journey.
1.Posting before and after pictures
Before and after photos are common advertising tactics for weight loss programs. They typically show someone before starting the diet (or workout plan, etc.) and after losing weight from the program.
These photos are super problematic because they perpetuate anti-fat bias by implying that bodies that are thinner are better.
While these photos may attract customers who want to lose weight, a visual snapshot of someone at two points in time leaves out so much context.
For one, we don’t know anything about the person’s mental and social well-being. We also don’t know anything about their health since body size isn’t a good indicator of health status.
Plus, almost all dieters regain the weight they initially lose from a diet and some regain even more. These snapshots leave this context out, too.
We also don’t see what the person may have had to give up to lose the weight—things like their social life, pleasure from food, sex drive, strength of relationships, and perhaps mental health.
Ultimately, we see only two points in time isolated to one photo each, not the full continuum of life and body changes that will inevitably continue beyond the short-term weight loss of the diet.
2. Using appearance-centered posts
Even if not through before and after photos, some accounts are very centered around appearance. They might include carefully curated photos—often of thin, white women who fit society’s beauty ideal.
These photos can breed comparison, especially when they’re wellness or lifestyle accounts sending the subtle or direct message that if you eat like them and workout like them, you will look like them.
In reality, most of us won’t be able to obtain the thin ideal we see promoted in the media despite diet companies trying to convince us otherwise.
Additionally, these photos may imply that our appearance is the most important thing about us as opposed to interoceptive awareness and connection with one’s own body.
This messaging can be especially subtle because the accounts might even be outwardly promoting “intuitive eating” in their posts when they’re really promoting a watered down version of this non-diet approach to nutrition.
Consider the implicit messaging and level of focus on appearance to help determine whether they’re truly promoting intuitive eating or if they’re really just another diet. Also, consider whether they make you feel empowered or if they bring you down.
3.Sharing “what I eat in a day” posts
“What I eat in a day” posts are harmful in that they suggest, whether explicitly or implicitly, that if you eat like the creator, you will look like the creator.
In reality, even if two individuals ate the same and moved the same, they wouldn’t have the same body shape and size. There’s a lot more to our appearance than just what we eat and how we move, such as genetics, metabolism, socioeconomic status, health conditions, medications, and diet history.
There’s also a lot of context left out of these posts.
What was physical activity like that day?
Is this how they eat every single day?
What is their income level and access to food like?
What about when we need convenient food choices or we have a super busy day?
Did they leave out any snacks or drinks they had throughout the day?
How much leisure time do they have in their day to prepare food?
We don’t really need those questions answered, but they highlight some of the nuance left out of these posts.
Ultimately, we don’t need to compare our eating to others. Doing so disconnects us from our own bodies’ cues and prevents us from making peace with food.
4. Using numbers like calories and weight
Centering numbers like calories, weight, or macros distracts us from our body’s inner wisdom and cues.
If we center around these numbers, we can easily get caught up in “obeying” certain calorie limits and end up with an all-or-nothing mindset, either hardcore restricting or saying “screw it!” and binge eating.
Food freedom, on the other hand, is achieved through connecting with your body and honoring its unique needs.
The same goes for weight, which is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to health. Focusing more on health-promoting, self-care behaviors has proven valuable for improving health outcomes, both physically and mentally.
So, if accounts center around these numbers it might be a red flag.
5. Posting things that leave you feeling worse
At the end of the day, you don’t want your social media feed to wreak havoc on your relationship with food and your body, and you know best what posts leave you feeling worse and which ones uplift you. Listen to that instinct and curate your feed accordingly.
This is another opportunity for connecting with yourself!
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