By Grace Catanese, Staff Writer
Diet culture on social media is something that many people have become very concerned with. The concern mainly has to do with the negative effects it has on people, as well as why it is important to recognize that it can be unhealthy to turn to social media for dietary advice.
Diet culture has to do with what people are eating, what they look like, and tips on how to work towards looking a certain way. Although this can be a very helpful tool when it comes to encouraging others to work towards their own goals and providing healthy and nutritional ways of being on a diet, it can be very harmful to peoples’ mental health at times.
Many times, people compare themselves to what they see on the internet, even if they are looking at someone with unrealistic body features. Many celebrities edit their photos or photoshop pictures before posting them, and this in turn causes people to see those pictures and work towards an unrealistic body goal. It can be extremely damaging to peoples’ mental health as well, since certain body features are impossible for people to obtain.
“I think that it is really upsetting that so many compare themselves to what they see online, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it. It can really decrease a person’s self-esteem and I think it’s important that people start to notice all of the false things that are online,” sophomore business major Gabrielle Previti said.
Many times, especially on TikTok, people will post what they eat in a day. While this can be informative for people to see, what people don’t realize is that everyone eats differently and what one person should eat might not be what another person should eat. People assume that just because something works for someone, it should work for everyone, when that is not the case.
Everyone is different and everyone has different needs and many think that too many people have lost sight of that.
“It bothers me when people just copy what someone else is doing because they have a certain goal they’re trying to reach. Individuality is important, especially when giving your body what it needs and I feel like diet culture causes so many eating disorders and people need to be aware of that,” sophomore business major Rebecca Margolin said.
Eating disorders are a very big concern when it comes to diet culture on social media.
Since so many people are setting unrealistic body goals and losing touch of what they need to do for themselves, it can cause severe eating disorders and it is important for it to be addressed.
“I really hope that people start to see how diet culture can be dangerous because it’s just going to get worse and more problems are going to occur,” Previti said.
Many feel as though if people are going to post their diet advice online that they should do it in a healthy way and let the viewers know that some things work for some body types and other things work for others. People believe that this will raise awareness and prevent diet culture on social media from becoming worse.
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