“The camera eats first”.
My sister thrusts her hand over my food, almost getting impaled by my incoming fork. I wait, looking greedily at my pork burger topped with pork belly avocado creme and sweet jalapeños, for my sister to take an Instagram-worthy picture.
Picture taken by Olivia Cero
After my meal, I scroll threw my newsfeed, account after account is full of food pictures. Everywhere I look, there is food. The fact is, people are obsessed with food, and social media has provided a platform for people to post everything they eat, and I mean everything .
Link to gif: https://media.tenor.co/images/dc272089d9c0fc14a068763fdb1b896d/raw
Body Image on Social Media
However there’s an oxymoron in that statement. Social media has enabled food to be everywhere a person looks, but social media has also created body-image issues. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr (and about 50 other social media websites), people only put their best self online. People enhance their pictures by face tuning (removing blemishes) and thinning their photos.
Social media has a huge effect on young people’s body confidence – Caroline Nokes, member of Be Real: Body Confidence for Everyone
Looking on social media, people only put up the photos where their bodies are a 10 and their skin is perfect. There will always be someone that has better skin, a better body, but social media has created a platform that rubs that fact in a girl’s face because those “betters” are just a scroll away.
Where is the Balance Between Food and Health
On the popular page, there will be a picture of a delicious-looking brownie sundae, then right next to it, a picture of an incredibly thin girl, or maybe a “fits-po” picture (fit +inspiration). The worst is when a user has a food account, and there will randomly be a picture of the person behind the camera, and guess what? stick skinny. I mean… how does that even happen? Don’t tell me you eat the four cheese mozzarella sticks or triple layer artichoke dip and still look like that. The problem that I face, and many people, do is how do I balance the two? I want to be fit, but also, I am never gonna say no to extra fries.
https://www.instagram.com/kayla_itsines/
https://www.instagram.com/infatuation/
The Struggle Between Food Accounts and Health Accounts
Food accounts on Instagram introduce me to new restaurants, maybe a different type of food all together (think: grilled cheese donuts). Fit-accounts teach me new workouts, and they honestly do inspire me to go on a run.
The problem is, when I go to a new restaurant and try the Cap’n Crunch french toast (courtesy of foodnbabyny), the next moment I go on Instagram and KaylaItness has a new post, featuring her perfect abs and toned legs. My legs feel infinitely larger, and I know (I KNOW) the french toast went straight to the thighs.
On the flip side, I’ll be eating “clean”, starting to finally feel a little bit of that french toast to leave my love handles, and I’ll suddenly find a new restaurant (via Instagram) that features a goat-cheese pizza with truffle oil and suddenly, all of my progress doesn’t seem worth it, and I have to, have to, have that pizza.
From giphy.com
Finding a Balance
So, with spring break fast approaching, but a new cookie ice-cream sandwich store opening, I had to find a balance. There is no way I could unfollow my 20+ food account (@treatyooooself, @infatuation, @indulgenteats to name a few), but I also do want to be healthy. I decided to try a balance.
TheOdyssey.com
Searching through my Instagram, I found a food account called Goodful. This account has videos of food being made, but the food, is semi-healthy. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is not celery and carrots healthy, but the food is better than the triple-patty hamburger that @starvinginseattle just posted.
From Goodful, I found more realistic health accounts. Instead of following the already stick-skinny, perfect arms and legs, girl that has 500k followers, I decided to find accounts that show realistic people: people who have skip days, might have a little cellulite, but still encourage me to go on runs and forgo the third piece of cheesecake.
By adding these to my Instagram feed, I found a nice middle, one that doesn’t tear me down about my body, but also encourages healthy-eating with of course, the once-a-week (maybe more) cheat days. It is up to you what this balance between food accounts and health accounts is, the “middle” is personal. The trick is finding your balance, that makes you happy.