Social media often promotes unrealistic ideals that can lead to disordered eating. In this blog post, we will discuss the recent health and fitness trends on social media and how they can negatively impact our well-being.
“Health” Influencers Can Perpetuate Unrealistic Ideals
Health and fitness-related content has flooded social media in recent years, particularly on TikTok and Instagram. Self-proclaimed health influencers often promote restrictive dietary patterns and extreme fitness regimens under the disguise of a “healthy lifestyle”.
Fitness influencers in particular tend to perpetuate unrealistic lifestyles, including diets with strict macronutrient ratios and excessive protein content. It is also common to see posts vilifying certain foods and food groupings. These diets are highly restrictive and can imply that the only purpose of consuming food is for fuel. This is untrue and can lead to negative relationships with food. Unless you have an allergy or extreme disliking for a food, there is also no reason to completely cut it out of your diet.
Physical activity can be promoted in a similar way to food on social media. Aggressive daily exercise sessions that last multiple hours, sometimes multiple times a day, are portrayed as being part of a “balanced” lifestyle and a non-negotiable for optimal health. This is also untrue and can lead to negative relationships with movement.
The lifestyles some influencers promote can be extremely unrealistic and damaging to our well-being. Food and movement are much more than just tools for optimal performance. Food and movement can be sources of pleasure, joy, creativity, culture, and so much more.
Food and movement can be sources of pleasure, joy, creativity, culture, and so much more.
Purely focusing on eating “clean” foods and restricting other foods can actually lead to nutrient deficiencies and worsen health in the long term. A rigid obsession with exercise can have similar effects, creating excessive strain on the body and preventing adequate recovery time. These diet and exercise regimens are unrealistic and can create feelings of inadequacy and guilt.
Partaking in Regimes on Social Media Can Cause Harm
While the intention of wellness content creators may be to inspire their followers, strict diet and exercise content can be incredibly dangerous, especially for those who are more vulnerable. Of all age groups, teens are more likely to have a negative body image. This can make them more susceptible to believing that the behaviours wellness content creators portray can change the way they look and feel. It can also make them more likely to engage in them.
While females report higher rates of body dissatisfaction, it is becoming more prevalent among males as well. Fitness trends increase the pressure on males to become muscular. This can lead to a sub-type of body dysmorphia called muscle dysmorphia (MD), where one becomes obsessed with muscularity and leanness.
Individuals with MD may perceive that their muscles are too small or weak, while in reality their body composition may be completely normal or even excessively muscular. This can lead to excessive exercise and weight-lifting, along with social withdrawal as one’s entire life becomes revolved around muscularity. MD can also increase the chance that someone will begin using performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids, to change their appearance or improve performance. While taking these drugs always poses major health risks, it can be even more dangerous when young folks, whose bodies are still growing, use them.
Influencers’ Appearances
It’s important to keep in mind that the lifestyles these influencers promote aren’t necessarily responsible for how they look. Their bodies are often a result of their genetics or from taking performance-enhancing substances. Many fitness influencers also work full-time in the fitness industry and dedicate their lives to cultivating their image.
Often, the bodies we see shared online are also edited to change appearance. Even videos can be heavily edited these days, with new software making it possible to alter their bodies in real time, further perpetuating unattainable ideals.
“Health” Influencers and Eating Disorders
The constant exposure to impossible body standards and lifestyles can exacerbate feelings of body dissatisfaction, damage relationships with food, and impair mental health. Eating disorders and disordered eating behaviours can be triggered by a social media feed full of diet and exercise content disguised as the ultimate “healthy” lifestyle.
Orthorexia is a form of eating disorder where an individual follows strict food rules in an attempt to maximize health. The lifestyles that wellness influencers promote often resemble orthorexic behaviours and unfortunately normalize them. For example, obsessing over nutrition labels and eating only a small variety of foods deemed “clean” enough are behaviours often portrayed by wellness influencers and are also symptoms of orthorexia. This content, along with the glamorization of excessive exercise, is contributing to the rise of orthorexia among folks of all ages and genders. Adding fuel to the fire, platform algorithms create highly personalized feeds that enable us to view so-called “healthy lifestyle” media in rapid succession.
As we scroll through social media, we must think critically about the nutrition and fitness content we engage with to establish if it is promoting unrealistic ideals and disordered behaviours.
Are you concerned your child may be living with disordered eating or an eating disorder? Click below to view our free on-demand webinar, First, Do No Harm, for parents of children living with an eating disorder presented by our Clinical Director, Jillian Walsh, RD, RP.
