A very common thing that many users are posting include ‘what i eat in a day’ videos. People as young as twelve are posting these no sugar diets in order to attempt to loose a bit of weight. With this drilled into our head at such as young age it makes other young people think its normal to follow these unhealthy lifestyles. Another huge issue surrounding this type of content is that many people in these comment sections are encouraging unhealthy behaviour which again makes other young children think this is the correct thing to do.
On a larger scale it is clear to acknowledge that small videos such as these can lead to huge issues such as disordered eating and problems with self confidence. Its not only TikTok that isn’t helping with young peoples confidence. Media is pushing an agenda for women to have a certain body type and image. However, because the apps is so commonly used with young people it is recognised as being a huge source to peoples confidence.
Personally, when looked into some peoples diets they are trying out, the thing that bought the most attention to me was the comments with people saying ‘I’m not hungry I’m not hungry’ and ‘I’m not eating now’. Its an unhealthy environment where people are encouraging others to loose weight when they have no clue who this person is. For some watching this kinds of videos can be extremely triggering and can lead an individual to have a relapse to an eating disorder.
There are many influencers promoting “skinny tea”, diet pills, waist trainers and keto diets and its proven that this kind of content get the most amount of views illustrating that its reaching a large audience who will probably be negatively impacted by the video. What many people don’t understand is that we are all completely different with different anatomy, different heights and different bone structure. It would be physically impossible to make every single person look exactly the same so why is the media acting like that’s normal?
Those that post content on social media need to understand that there are vulnerable people who view your content and will think that by eating what they eat is going to give you the same body as them. If you know something might be triggering to others then don’t post it.
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