Recently, a new trend has taken over TikTok. This trend concerns diet culture. Users will post onto their feed a video of what they eat in a day. These videos can range from a variety of diets. Popular diets include attempting to be in a calorie deficit, which is when you are burning more calories than you are eating, keto diet, which is eating a minimal amount of carbs, and intermittent fasting, which is when you can only eat over a specific length of time. Some users have days filled with eating and snacking while others include minimal amounts of food. It can be interesting to get insight into someone else’s life and inspiration for snacks and dinners, however, it can also create unrealistic expectations.
Everyone’s body is made differently. This means we all need a different amount of calories throughout the day. According to Medical News Today, “calories are the energy that food provides.” Depending on your metabolism as well as dietary requirements, one person’s “What I Eat in a Day” can be completely different from someone else’s. In general, according to Medical News Today the average amount of calories a woman should eat is 2,000, while men need to eat 2,500. It is important to note that everyone is different and this number may vary based on their lifestyle and dietary needs.
Some of the people posting these videos include D1 athletes, fitness enthusiasts and people who do minimal activity. All of these people with diverse lifestyles are covering one trend, and it can create a toxic mindset for viewers. Also, many of these posts come from people who are not licensed to give out facts and information on the subject of weight loss and eating. Watching videos of users who lack credentials and are not backed by science can be harmful. These users are providing information that has not been tested and proved safe to follow. This can have harmful impacts on the body without people even realizing it.
The reason this trend can be toxic is that these videos don’t always represent what you should be eating. Watching a video in which the person eats a minimal amount of food can make someone else feel like they are eating too much. This can cause that person to change their eating habits to reflect the video they just watched. Seeing videos on the internet that show vastly different lifestyles can set an unrealistic example for someone who feels they need to change their eating habits. This may cause a person to cut down the amount of calories they eat, when in reality, they may need to be eating more.
As mentioned earlier, people need to hit a certain calorie intake so that their bodies have enough energy to operate. Under-eating can cause a person to lose energy and be unable to do every day activities. For women, under-eating may even make them lose their menstrual cycle. Actions such as these may cause someone to develop an eating disorder. Worrying about if their diet is worthy of an aesthetically pleasing TikTok can cause a great amount of pressure. The New York Post published an article in which those who have been affected by disordered eating explain how harmful watching these videos can be. They explain that these videos have created a pro-disordered eating environment.
However, these videos also can have a reverse effect. If someone sees the need to eat more, they may be adding more food to their diet than necessary and in result, gaining weight they may not have wanted.
Being a trend, these types of videos can appear multiple times while scrolling through Tik Tok. Seeing these types of videos constantly can make a person feel as if they need to be following what users say to do in the video, especially impressionable youth. The damage these videos can cause on a person outweighs the benefits that they can potentially have.
The app has a large following from the youth demographic. According to Statista, a market and consumer data collector service, 32.5 percent of users are ages 10-19. While it may seem like a small number, it is the largest percentage of an age group on the app. In comparison, 20-29 year-olds make up 29.5 percent of TikTok’s users, and 16.4 percent of users fall in the 30-39 age range. Having such a large amount of viewers come from the 10-19 demographic allows for many of the viewers to be impressionable. They are seeing these types of videos at an age in which insecurity is heightened, which can be very detrimental.
At this age, many adolescents are attempting to fit in and follow the “norms.” Luckily, society has become a lot more body positive than in the past; however, the stick-thin body type is still idolized by many. Seeing this idolized body type can make youth feel that they are not good enough and make them willing to do anything to achieve this body— including disordered eating. This demographic is most likely to be susceptible to an eating disorder according to the National Eating Disorder Collaboration.
If you are curious about weight loss, weight gain or sustaining weight you can always turn to a nutritionist who can provide healthy solutions. If you go to West Virginia University, the info for the school nutritionist is here. There are also many qualified TikTok users who are certified doctors and nutritionists. Before watching and following their videos however, do your research and confirm either their certification or that their tips are valid.
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Edited by Zoë Skvarka