Holidays, social media and diet culture dangers for teens
Be careful with the messages around food this holiday season
Tis the season to indulge a little, am I right?
But don’t let social media catch you with a second piece of pumpkin pie - it’s brutal out there.
Older folks may recall the saying “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” from pre-social media days and doubt the severity of social media’s impact on Gen Z’s bodies. Those who grew up with flip phones, Weight Watchers commercials, and a televised Oprah tugging a wagon full of lard across her stage may also consider today’s body positivity culture an improvement and brush off concerns.
Today’s teens may not experience nearly as much overt pressure to avoid the pie and lose the holiday pounds, however, tags like #thinspo and a body-checking culture prevalent among platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter make the pressure they experience continuous, 24/7 and toxic.
So why is now different in diet culture?
It’s gotten more toxic out there. What’s changed both the number of messages and the severity of the content. Kids aren’t just hearing messages once or twice a day. They’re not just seeing ads in magazines or covers of books. They’re seeing extreme exercising, dieting messages and reminders that they’re not the ideal size every time they pick up their phone. 24/7. In videos, posts and comments, social media platforms are feeding them harmful messages one after another, on endless scroll, and it doesn’t take long to see those messages of dieting and think “everyone is doing this”.
Kids are seeing subtle messages that their bodies aren’t good enough, like the rail-thin influencers who obsess about imaginary flaws.
Kids are also seeing overt messages. New trends and challenges pop up weekly, like whack-a-mole, including challenges that measure and monitor the circumference of your wrist or size of your waist and the “What I eat in a day?” challenge that asks users to report on their food intake (always too much).
TikTok hashtags like #jawlinecheck has 449 million views, #smallwaist has 827 million views and #sideprofile stands at 1.2 billion views. Trends like these perpetuate an intense focus on physical appearance and often the sole objective is to “flex” a certain feature. Other body-checking trends take the form of fixation or comparison of weight and numbers. In addition to the millions of views, the comment section is cause for alarm with users frequently posting comments like “I’m not hungry anymore” or “skipping dinner.”
This CNN report headline says it all - “Don’t serve disordered eating to your teens this holiday season”. There’s been a noticeable spike in eating disorders, particularly among adolescent girls, since the beginning of the pandemic and messages on social media are partly to blame.
What can adults do to help?
Recognize how pervasive this diet culture is on social media for kids. Even if they don’t want to see it, they’re targeted because of their age. If they stop their scroll and watch a video, then they’ll receive even more of that content and it will get more extreme.
Role model healthy body messages. Don’t talk negatively about your own body, your weight, your size, your pants not fitting right and don’t shame or point out others.
Try not commenting on a person’s size, even if you think it’s a positive comment. Instead of “You look great! Have you lost weight?”, you can say “So happy to see you!”
Move your body. Incorporate a family walk into your holiday plans.
Have a variety of healthy foods available (without forcing people eat them)
Recognize the pressure is extra intense over the holidays with the focus on foods and sweets
Rather than say “There goes my diet!”, you can say “This food looks delicious!”
Don’t be the food police. Never ask “Are you sure you need seconds?” or remind others about their diet while eating in a group. It’s not helpful.
This article was written by Lisa Honold, with special teen guest blogger Lauren Honold.