These days, spending time on social media platforms is a common experience among people of all generations. It is unusual to find someone who has access to the internet and doesn\u2019t have a profile on at least one social media platform. In fact, the question that divides generations isn\u2019t so much about whether they are on social media or not, but which platforms they use and like best.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Social media can be integrated into almost every aspect of people\u2019s lives in some way or another\u2014from social networking and buying products and services to building a business and getting health and nutrition advice. It is likely that most people on social media receive at least some messages about nutrition, eating habits, and body image through the accounts they follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As you scroll through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, or LinkedIn, ask yourself\u2014how many nutrition, health, and fitness influencers do you follow? What are they saying? How do they make you feel about your lifestyle choices? As a health and nutrition coach, do they impact your thinking and behavior? How might they impact the behaviors and thinking of people without the background knowledge you have?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this article, we discuss recent research on the impact of social media on eating habits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether you want to understand how social media might be impacting your clients\u2019 eating habits, or you want to be aware of considerations for your own social media content, the information provided here will help you have a greater understanding of the potential of social media to have an impact on eating habits, and, more importantly, how to create content that is more likely to have a positive impact on your clients\u2019 and followers\u2019 eating habits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If you are an influencer or strive to be one someday, as you read this section, we would like to encourage you to step back for a moment and think about the social media world and the role of influencers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Generally speaking, what is social media? Social media is where people share experiences, opinions, knowledge, thoughts, and feelings.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is also where organizations, businesses, and companies project their brand and values with the goal of motivating individuals to jump on board an idea, product, or service.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the previous statements are true, the reality of the social media world isn\u2019t so clear-cut. People who are out to share their experiences, opinions, knowledge, thoughts, and feelings may be out to gain a following.\u00a0<\/p>\n A social media following could lead to business and monetization opportunities. Therefore, the line between an individual out to connect with like-minded people and for-profit endeavors may be blurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ultimately, the goal for many on social media, nonetheless, is to become an influencer. Influencers are people who, whether for profit, perks or to get ideas out there, have the power to influence the thoughts and actions of their followers. They may have gained the identity of an influencer because of what they share, because of how they share it, or both.\u00a0<\/p>\n As a health and nutrition coach, you specialize in understanding the complex and intertwined components that influence health behaviors<\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n People who are influencers have opinions about and experiences with food and eating habits. There are endless criteria that impact their opinions and experiences, including:\u00a0<\/p>\n As you scroll through your social media platforms, this explains why there may be conflicting information, strong opinions, and overt and covert ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the world of behavioral psychology, it is widely accepted that when humans are exposed to \u201csocial norm messages,\u201d it influences their behavior to emulate that behavior as closely as is practical for them. In other words, people will try to adopt eating habits that closely imitate socially acceptable or expected standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before social media was a part of the human experience, this meant that people observed how people around them ate and the messaging around these eating patterns. These were the social norms, and they were influenced by culture, ecology, economics, and access, among others. Then, they built eating patterns based on these social norms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, the real-life social aspects continue to influence our eating habits, but there is a newer factor that widens our social circles significantly: Social media.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n A recent study <\/span>out of the University of Birmingham examined the role of social media, specifically Facebook, in influencing our eating behaviors.\u00a0<\/p>\n The study examined whether perceived norms about Facebook users\u2019 eating habits and food preferences predicted their food consumption. It examined whether the content in individuals\u2019 social networks about food and eating habits impacted their own eating habits and preferences for:<\/p>\n The study found that perceived eating behavior norms were significant positive predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption. Additionally, perceived norms about what people should and shouldn\u2019t eat regarding energy-dense snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages were also predictors of users\u2019 intake.\u00a0<\/p>\n The researchers concluded, \u201cThese findings suggest that perceived norms concerning actual consumption and norms related to approval may guide consumption of low and high energy-dense foods and beverages differently.\u201d<\/p>\n This may seem like good news, assuming that peoples\u2019 social media is filled with information about health-promoting eating behaviors. It may also mean that having a network that frequently shares information about fad diets, shares inaccurate information, or that simply excludes the consumption of nutrient-dense foods like fruits and vegetables may have a negative impact on eating behaviors.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is not only pictures of food and content about what nutritionists and fitness experts ate in a day that influence peoples\u2019 eating habits. In Western culture, it is no secret that thin, lean, big-chested, and big-bottomed female bodies and lean and muscular male bodies are considered \u201cideal\u201d and generally associated with greater attractiveness and health.\u00a0<\/p>\n In reality, however, recent research demonstrates that body shape and size<\/span> have little to no impact on health, and it has been long-known that ideas of attractiveness are relative. Additionally, only a small percentage of bodies actually fit the culturally accepted Western body ideal.\u00a0<\/p>\n What does this mean for those on social media? Studies show<\/span> that when users\u2019 feeds are flooded with images of bodies that seem to fit the culturally accepted ideal, they have lower self-esteem, feel shame, and feel the need to manipulate their diet to lose weight, gain weight, or gain muscle in the \u201cright\u201d places. This thinking leads to disordered eating<\/span>, which is often misdiagnosed or hidden as healthy or disciplined eating habits.\u00a0<\/p>\n While all sexes and genders are affected by selfie-triggered body shame, females<\/span> and LGBTQ+<\/span> individuals seem to experience most shame.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advertisements and paid promotions are sticky topics when it comes to describing their impact on behavior through social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n By definition, for-profit advertisements are designed to trigger an action that will lead you to make a purchase. Unlike traditional advertisements like television commercials, magazine sections, fliers, billboards, pop-ups, and webpage advertisements that are spaces exclusively for selling ideas, products, and services, advertising on social media isn\u2019t always easy to set apart from the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n On your social media feeds, you will find a picture of your cousin\u2019s family and your friend\u2019s opinion of a recent book they read, followed by a paid advertisement that follows the same format. If you aren\u2019t looking for the grayed-out word with the label \u201cAdvertisement\u201d or the #ad hashtag, the fact that a company paid for that content to show up on your feed can go unnoticed.\u00a0<\/p>\n In this sense, as you look through your feed filled with people, companies, and organizations you chose to follow, advertisements get a boost over normal algorithms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The question is\u2014how do advertisements impact eating behaviors?\u00a0<\/p>\n Several studies have focused on the impact of food and beverage-related advertisements on eating behaviors, especially of children and adolescents. This is what researchers found:\u00a0<\/p>\n Intuitive eating, Health at Every Size (HAES), body acceptance, and body positivity are all relatively new movements and approaches in the mainstream health and nutrition field. They are also controversial approaches<\/span> to health and nutrition in some circles, and they may not speak to your personal philosophies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the research that these movements have had a significantly positive effect on the mental health and\u2014yes\u2014physical health of people of all different body shapes and sizes. Social media has the potential to add fuel to the fire of food shaming and food restriction that, as demonstrated in the previous two points, can lead to feelings of shame, trauma<\/span>, and disordered eating.\u00a0<\/p>\n Below is a summary of the research of how these approaches help to ameliorate the impact of social media on disordered eating behaviors and negative body image:\u00a0<\/p>\n If health and wellness, rather than weight loss and body shape and size, is the goal of your coaching practice, you may want to consider learning about and adopting some of these frameworks and approaches.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking your health, wellness, or nutrition coaching business online<\/span> has the potential to maximize your impact and reach, not to mention your income.\u00a0<\/p>\n The effective use of social media in your digital marketing and branding endeavors is essential to any online business.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, in light of the information shared in this article about the potential impact of social media on eating behaviors, mental health, and physical health, it is important to consider the impact of the content you publish on your following and potential leads.\u00a0<\/p>\n As you build your social media strategy to promote your brand and your business, here are three things to consider so your content contributes to long-term psychological and physical health.<\/p>\n For most coaches, your followers are not full-time nutrition, health, or fitness professionals. They have other jobs and responsibilities and likely only have a limited amount of time and resources to dedicate specifically to physical activity and eating. If you are making recommendations, consider their reality. This will help diminish or eliminate a projection of shame.<\/p>\n If you are a health coach, you likely spend more time than the average person thinking about meals, working out, and daily routines. You may think that sharing images of what you ate in a day, before and after pictures, measuring out your food, and calculating nutrients and calories helps to motivate your followers or demonstrate your dedication, but in doing so, you may be triggering shame, disordered eating habits, and low self-esteem.\u00a0<\/p>\n It may not always be the case, however, if your content is honest, makes you more relatable, demonstrates how to put your recommendations into practice, or helps challenge some of the idealized, edited images of health professionals on mainstream media. Some of this content may also be useful for professionals who focus on coaching and training professional athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is increasingly normal for children and adolescents to have access to content created for adults. Be aware of the impact that your content may have on younger populations who are more susceptible to the impact of advertising and subliminal messaging.\u00a0<\/p>\n When health experts, like yourself, affirm stereotyped body images and eating patterns that promote health, it can send the message that there is only one path to wellbeing. In a world with so much cultural richness and multitudes of experiences, it is important to acknowledge that there are many paths to wellbeing.\u00a0<\/p>\n By acknowledging the experiences of clients with different backgrounds, diagnoses, and body shapes and sizes, not only are you helping to transform the social media world that can lead to disordered eating, but you are also casting your net into a wider market that can imagine working with you.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Social media platforms are complex, rich, and ever-changing worlds that influence, among a multitude of other things, eating habits and body image. The health, nutrition, and wellness industries have found a home on social media, as people look for readable and accessible information, tips, advice, and services that can help them make behavior changes that promote health.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, though the intention is positive, much of the mainstream health and nutrition social media content has more of a negative impact on long-term health and wellness than a positive one.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n If you are a health, nutrition, fitness, or wellness influencer, consider creating content that promotes healthy body image, relates to your real-life followers, and acknowledges a variety of experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nA Critical Eye on Social Media Influencers\u00a0<\/h2>\n
What and Who Influences Influencers?<\/h3>\n
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4 Ways Social Media May Impact Our Eating Habits\u00a0<\/h2>\n
The Meals Our Social Network Shares Impact Our Eating Habits<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Edited Selfies and the Idealization of Thin Bodies on Social Media Can Lead to Disordered Eating<\/span><\/h3>\n
Advertisements with Clear Messaging about Food Impact Eating Habits<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Movements that Promote Intuitive Eating, Appreciation of Cultural Eating Patterns, and Body Acceptance Can Help Reverse the Damage of Social Media\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Are You an Influencer or Do You Plan to Be? 4 Considerations for Your Content<\/h2>\n
If you are making recommendations, make sure they are doable.\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Sharing before and after pictures, selfies, meals, and personal fitness routines? Ask yourself whether this will actually be helpful to your followers.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
Be aware of the impact of your content on children and adolescents.<\/span><\/h3>\n
Acknowledge different experiences.<\/h3>\n
Main Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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References:\u00a0<\/h2>\n
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