Every week I come to this blog to talk about the joys of sharing food on social media. It can show healthy food, delicious food, show your accomplishments and your personality, and links foodies all around the world. However, there are some ways that social media can affect people's eating that is less positive. Last week I talked about the capacity for these posts to make people obese. Now I am going to talk about the capability for social media to spark eating disorders and unhappiness with one's body.
Because of the excessive time we spend on social media everyday, we are exposed the the going ons in peoples lives at every step of the way. More and more, we begin to compare ourselves to the people on our newsfeed. We see people get engage, get jobs, go on extravagant resorts, and look absolutely amazing at huge events. Every time we see these posts, whether consciously or subconsciously, we compare ourselves to them and allow them to make us feel worse about ourselves. Hashtags such as "#thighgap" and "#thinstagram" make it all to easy for someone to get the "inspiration" they need to continue being anorexic. There are also pro eating disorder chatrooms online for people who need support to continue their disease, and other people help them.
I am not saying that social media is the cause of 30 million Americans who suffer from various eating disorders, but it is proven that it fuels them. On top of comparison to others, some scientists found that people can force themselves to feel full by just looking at food videos and photos. It is the opposite affect of my last blog post, but can still hold true for some people. With all of the food related posts, anorexic people can convince themselves they are full just from scrolling down their news feed.
I cannot count the number of times my friends will talk about how beautiful someone is on instragram or how perfect their life seems. The truth is, we do not really know them or how their life really is. Luckily there have been movements for self love and many articles written about not judging a profile by its cover. Although people still suffer from self hate and eating disorders, hopefully there will be a turn around to show self love and honesty on social media.
I agree, I feel like all of these fit instagrams and foodie instagrams have so much influence in today's society. It's easy to compare your life to those on social media, but in reality you have no idea what their life actually consists of. It's so important to remember that everyone is beautiful in their own way and that comparison is the thief of all happiness.
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