What should I eat today?

Social Media: society’s biggest blessing and biggest curse. This statement is quite general, so allow me to elaborate.

My morning routine consists of the following: waking up, checking social media (TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat — the usual), brushing my teeth, checking my weather app to decide what jeans and top combination I want to wear and calling my mom.

Then it comes time to think about what I should eat for breakfast …

Like many young adults, I fell victim to the pressures of diet culture and the grand allure of social media at the beginning of my teenage years. This “grand allure” refers to the magnetic appeal of the media that draws users into a vicious cycle of connectivity and seeking approval. Can you blame me? I grew up surrounded by people posting every aspect of their lives online.

At the age of 14, I was in a constant state of comparison, whether it be about my social life or my body. My social media, full of friends at parties and strangers in bikinis and fitted clothing, led me to constantly compare and critique myself and my own body.

This content made me feel as though my body was inferior, and the pressure to be thin built up in my brain. There was constant noise telling me to do better, exercise more, eat less. I am not alone in this struggle. Diet culture is a widespread phenomenon deeply embedded in our society.

Michelle Terry, a licensed clinical psychotherapist who specializes in the treatment of teens and adults, likened navigating social media to keeping a car in its own lane. She explained to me how people should use bumpers, or self regulated protections against comparison, such as digital detoxes, disliking toxic content and setting social media time limits.

“I always tell my clients, stay in your lane. Put up the bumpers,” Terry said. “Social media has many benefits, [but] it makes it hard to shut out the noise and just not compare yourself or take into account where someone else’s car is in their lane.”

Terry’s remarks on the difficulty of comparison on social media can be easily applied within the realm of diet culture. Diet culture is a social media phenomenon that perpetuates society’s expectations around food and weight, typically equating “healthy” to thin and categorizing foods as “good” or “bad.”

This culture can manifest on social media in many ways, specifically on TikTok. Some may view the app as particularly dangerous for diet culture-influenced viewers due to its large size and easy ways to gain followers.

Then, there is the algorithm trap. The endless scrolling and personalized “For You” page.

TikTok has seemingly endless content. I often find myself checking my screen time and wishing that I didn’t after seeing the sheer amount of hours I’ve spent scrolling on the app. I, like many others, have fallen victim to the never-ending content that feels like it was picked just for me. Maybe that’s because it was.

While diet culture content exists on other apps, TikTok’s content creates a particularly vicious cycle; the more you interact with “diet culture” content, the more of it you will see. At a young and vulnerable age, many TikTok users fall into this bottomless pit of often harmful video content.

Many of TikTok’s users, including content creators, fall into the range of 15 to 25 years old. Despite the presence of some more reputable professionals, a large number of content creators are laymen who do not have the experience or education to validate their advice.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to criticize this, though — one of the biggest appeals of TikTok is its casual nature and inclusivity to everyone. However, regardless of their intentions, many of these influencers are responsible for promoting unhealthy mindsets and behaviors.

I found myself struggling to differentiate between informational and bogus content and overwhelmed by what I was consuming on my phone. After six months of interacting with diet culture content, I approached my mom and asked for her advice.

She told me that I should filter my content by pressing “Not Interested” on videos promoting toxic body image content and unhealthy eating habits. This seemed easy enough. However, many of these videos are not obviously dangerous by their titles or even by the content they contain.

A prime example of this is “What I Eat in a Day” videos, where users show each of the meals, and sometimes caloric intake, that they consume in a day. These seem harmless enough. I began to watch these videos when I got to the, “What should I eat for breakfast today?” part of my morning routine. Quickly, these videos became a medium of getting inspiration for what I should make for breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes a snack if the creator allowed for one in their day — though some didn’t.

I stopped listening to my hunger cues and started following what I thought was a recipe to my perfect body. I listened to strangers on my phone who told me eating smaller portions would help me achieve a thinner look. Like many others, I had fallen into the trap of letting TikTok and not my body tell me what to eat and when it was appropriate to do so.

This newfound meal and lifestyle “inspiration” turned into a very toxic environment for me when it came to eating. Many of these videos are created as a way for creators to show what kind of foods they eat to stay thin or lose weight.

What these videos failed to recognize is that there is no one secret diet that will allow everyone to lose that “stubborn” 10 pounds or one product that will cure all of the bloating in the world.

One creator who has recently been facing a lot of backlash and scrutiny is Liv Schmidt. Schmidt is also known as the “Skinny Influencer” — her name alone describes the toxic influence she inherently has on impressionable adolescents online.

Schmidt is 22 years old and mainly makes content about obtaining and maintaining a skinny physique. She is popular for her “What I Eat in a Day” videos. Schmidt made a video in which she stated, “Do you know your stomach is only the size of your fist? Stop stuffing it, you’re not a Thanksgiving turkey,” when discussing portion control. The creator says that despite maintaining her current weight now, she eats very similar to the way she ate while she was trying to lose weight.

In the early 2000s, the media promoted content encouraging harmful weight loss practices. There were communities of people on social media apps that circulated so-called “thinspiration” content and encouraged disordered eating behaviors. The early 2000s was a time when mainstream media solely showcased thin and flawless women as the role models for adolescent girls and young adults.

Kathleen Somaeh, a psychologist in Marin County who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders, explained in a New York Times article that Schmidt’s content is more subtle than the explicit pro-anorexia content that was seen in the early 2000s, but just as powerful and enticing.

This in itself shows what is so dangerous about Schmidt’s content and what we must take away: As consumers, we cannot allow pro-anorexia content to flourish under the guise of wellness.

TikTok banned Schmidt’s main account, yet she continues to post under a new account completely unphased.

Many professionals have seen their clients struggle with comparison to “desirable”-looking influencers like Schmidt, falling victim to toxic online diet culture.

Marlee Dannenbaum is a registered dietician in New York working part time in an eating disorder treatment center and part time in private practice, where she specializes in high acuity eating disorders.

“A lot of times what happens is [clients] will come in and they’ll be like, ‘This is what I eat in the day, and I think it’s too much,’” Dannenbaum said. “Then we’ll do a lot of education around why your energy needs are what they are, what your [Basal Metabolic Rate] is and what makes up your metabolism and how a lack of food is, in fact, your metabolism.”

Many college-age students feel pressure from social media and other creators similar to Schmidt to conform to “health and wellness standards” that could be seen by some as unattainable and unsustainable. They assume that because they see someone with their “goal body,” that person’s habits are what they should strive toward.

Sydney Gottlieb, a sophomore majoring in communication, reflected on the impact of diet-related TikToks on her page.

“‘What I Eat in a Day’ videos can be kind of toxic,” she said. “They have made me and other people compare what they’re eating to what other people are eating, and I think everybody has different appetites and bodies.”

So, how can this narrative be changed?

I continued to talk to Terry about what else she would tell her clients beyond filtering their own social media.

“Self-selecting out the content that is healthy for you … If I’m a client talking to myself, this is an area I’m vulnerable in or something that I’m going through right now,” Terry said. “Be self aware that, ‘Hey, in a month, that might be a safe space for me to explore on the internet, but right now it might not be,’ right?”

Beyond filtering out bad content and harmful advice, it is just as important to evaluate yourself and the place you are in when consuming any media related to the topic at all.

When you take advice from social media, it is often not serious or life-altering. However, it can be very dangerous to take the advice about your health from a stranger on your screen. So, it is simply crucial to take the advice on social media with caution and continue to be a critical consumer when regulating your social media platforms.

Rebecca Hambright, a registered dietitian and nutrition therapist in Bellingham, Washington, said influencers make content that gets straight to the point to sell a product or habits in a simplified manner devoid of nutritional information and disclaimers.

Much of this content is full of false promises, which can lead to food restriction, disordered eating and increased focus on food and weight. Many of them can be considered confusing and harmful to young adults, who are highly impressionable and vulnerable when it comes to body image and eating.

I have to admit that if done right, with the education and facts to back what is being shared with users, these types of videos are not completely detrimental. I talked with Dannenbaum about her experience with social media and diet culture.

“Some of [‘ What I Eat in a Day’ videos] can be helpful,” Dannenbaum said. “Let’s say a dietician or somebody that’s actually eating an adequate amount of food for somebody to see that who is in a place of restriction, or who is struggling with their relationship with food, to be able to see … how much food [they] need to eat a day.”

People can also use these videos for inspiration and as an aid if they are struggling to figure out how to support and feed their bodies in a positive and intuitive way.

When consuming content on social media, it is important to self-regulate. This involves actively filtering your own algorithm and taking a step back and asking yourself, is this content serving me in a positive way? Does this creator really know what they are talking about? If not, then unfollow, block or scroll past this content before giving it your attention.

“Those videos may be a good thing, like anything else done in moderation, and when you’re really educating yourself and self-selecting videos that you know will have a positive impact. You know the strength of your own character,” Terry said.

Being a critical consumer is vital to protect yourself from falling into a misinformation trap full of comparison.

It is very easy to suggest that people should just turn to professionals for help, whether it be to lose weight or learn how to eat. However, this is not possible for everyone. So in a way, these videos can be seen as a marketplace for information that can not be economically accessible through other means.

Social media now outnumbers other traditional channels, such as doctors and website search engines, as the main source of diet information. Unlike advice from a specialized nutrition expert, this advice is aimed at the general public and is not personalized for each user. So, although some information can be helpful, it is not guaranteed to apply or be useful to all consumers.

Now, when I wake up and get to the breakfast planning part of my day, I think twice about how to make this decision. I remind myself that my food choices do not need to align with the standards of anyone but myself. Listening to what my body needs and trusting my own judgment is far better than succumbing to social pressures and comparison.

I don’t have everything figured out, and I am patient with myself as I learn the best ways to manage growing up in the digital age we live in. I am going to make mistakes and fall into the diet culture social media trap from time to time, but every day I can make the conscious decision to control how much I allow this content to affect my life and my actions.