How food diary videos on social media can impact your body image

If you’ve ever compared yourself with others while scrolling through TikTok, you’re not alone.

Eating-related content is hugely popular on TikTok, with trends such as What I Eat In A Day providing glimpses into users’ daily meals and diets.

Although they may seem harmless, some studies have shown that watching such videos can be associated with poor body image among young people.

While these videos don’t violate any content guidelines or explicitly promote unrealistic beauty standards, they can encourage social comparison.

Some What I Eat In A Day videos fall into the “broad, nebulously defined grey area of thin ideal content” showcasing food and diets that reflect an idealised standard of thinness, says Associate Professor Scott Griffiths from the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences.

To get a better sense of what these videos contain, we looked at more than 100 TikTok videos linked to the hashtag #whatieatinaday. Here’s what we found.

The What I Eat In A Day videos we found varied widely and followed no strict format. But the overall concept is to take viewers through a day in the life of the creator and showcase what they eat.

A small subset of these What I Eat In A Day videos – particularly those containing the Mario soundtrack – are intended to be funny. This is a TikTok trend where creators take multiple selfies of themselves having bites of food at different times of day, which are then stitched together in a loose narrative.

Many of these What I Eat In A Day videos are edited in a style reminiscent of early Hollywood cinema, says Dr Sim Jia Ying, a film critic and media literacy lecturer at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. In classical cinema, the focus is often on achieving a happy ending, which does not always reflect reality, she adds.

Let’s break down one What I Eat In A Day video by a content creator with more than 1.7 million TikTok followers. The video has over 82,000 likes.

The song choice plays into the “happy ending” narrative seen in Hollywood cinema, Dr Sim says. Instead of genres such as techno or heavy metal, it is a lo-fi, bossa nova type of music that is often associated with lounges, she adds.

“These sounds create a sense that her life is a vacation.”

Ending with dessert, along with the relaxed audio tune, the idea of a perfect day is reinforced.

The techniques in continuity editing can also be seen in other videos, though they may have slightly different structures.

The above video drew close to 300 comments. One said: “Think you can eat anything you want and never worry about gaining weight.” Another added: “How you eat that much food but don't bloat.”

There were also others who pointed out that it’s all in the editing. One commented: “You are not eating anything you are just tasting.” Another added: “Guys, she is not eating that every single day c'mon.” We contacted the creator of the video for comments, but did not get a response.

These editing techniques not only apply to What I Eat In A Day videos, but are also evident in exercise and diet content, such as those tagged with #fitspo or #cleaneating – types of content that often fall in a grey area.

However, these videos need to be viewed within a broader context. For some content creators, sharing their food diaries is part of their recovery journey.

Here are all the videos in our dataset that included at least one vanity shot.

One creator reveals that she is “trying to lose weight, but being realistic without putting pressure” on herself. Another documents her day “as a fat girl who’s not trying to lose weight”.

A third creator says: “This is a What I Eat In A Day video that won’t make you feel bad about yourself, and it’s just a normal amount of food from someone that does not restrict or count calories.”

In our dataset, 44 per cent of the videos were narrated by the creator, often using first-person pronouns such as I or we. Viewers are more likely to identify with the person in the story when first-person pronouns are used, says Associate Professor Kim Hye Kyung from Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

Prof Kim, whose research area lies in media effects and narrative persuasion, adds that first-person perspectives in videos can be conveyed through camera angles, such as selfies.

The first National Youth Mental Health study conducted in Singapore in 2022 revealed that 20.2 per cent of young people experienced moderate to severe concerns about their body shape.

The potential negative impact of the media on body image is not new, stemming from society’s tendency to associate health with appearance. But the difference today lies in the drastically changed media landscape.

The platform debuted globally in 2018, focusing primarily on short-form video content. In 2023, it had 1.5 billion monthly active users, with 29.8 per cent of them aged between 18 and 24, according to the Business of Apps’ TikTok report.

People today tend to have shorter attention spans and prefer their information bite-sized, says NTU’s Associate Professor Chen Lou. In an era of information overload, time is limited, and everything is competing for attention, she adds.

Here’s the distribution of videos in our dataset by their duration.

Although TikTok videos use editing techniques similar to early Hollywood cinema, they have a different effect on the viewer, Dr Sim says.

While films are typically much longer, they have a clear beginning and end and are recognised as artistic creations. TikTok videos, in contrast, appear more like slices of everyday life.

They are not only easy to create, but also very accessible, which means people consume many of these videos in one sitting. As a result, these TikTok videos collectively present a continuous, unbroken narrative, she adds.

This becomes an issue when vulnerable young people are not able to differentiate between edited content and reality.

The source of content delivered to users today is vastly different from a decade ago, when it primarily came from friends or family. Now, algorithms recommend content based on predicted interests, often featuring people outside one’s personal networks.

TikTok influencers have become the role models for today’s younger generation, says Prof Lou, with young people learning from them by observing what they do on the platform.

Video-centric social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok are now more popular compared with Facebook and Twitter in 2015

There appears to be an overall shift towards a more “TikTok style of algorithm-driven content presentation” in today’s social media landscape, says Prof Griffiths, whose research focuses on body image, social media and eating disorders.

What sets TikTok apart from other social media platforms is its highly personalised “For You Page”, which is the central feature of the user experience.

Research suggests that TikTok’s algorithm determines the content you enjoy not just through deliberate actions, such as “following” a friend or “liking” a post, but also by tracking non-volitional behaviour, like the time you spent watching a video.

This has pros and cons.

If you are in a good headspace, you are likely to spend more time watching videos that you find funny or interesting, Prof Griffiths says.

For example, if a 15-year-old feels insecure about their body, watching TikTok videos of people with smaller bodies may lead them to spend more time on such content, evoking feelings of guilt and self-comparison, he adds.

“You might not tap the ‘like’ button – but you’re much more likely to get videos like that in the future.”

Compared with those who don’t have an eating disorder, those with an eating disorder...

This prioritisation of non-volitional user behaviour can send vulnerable users into echo chambers, where the content progressively worsens their situation, Prof Griffiths says.

A TikTok spokesperson said the platform does not allow posts showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviours.

“We also interrupt repetitive content patterns to ensure that dieting and extreme fitness content is not viewed too often,” the spokesperson said. “We work with a wide range of experts to protect the well-being of our community and to provide access to well-being resources.”

Users searching for “what I eat in a day” on TikTok see a pop-up message: “You are more than your weight”. The message reads: “If you or someone you know has questions about body image, food, or exercise - it is important to know that help is out there and you are not alone.” It includes links to information and treatment options.

TikTok has been taking steps to make its platform safer, including adding safeguards and content advisories. Since mid-2023, TikTok has allowed users to “refresh” their “For You Page”, resetting the types of content the algorithm presents to them.

But it is the nuanced, grey area content, such as What I Eat In A Day videos, that makes it tricky for TikTok to take action in terms of moderation or censorship, Prof Griffiths says.

Beyond that, it comes down to media literacy and educating users that what they see on social media is not the full picture.

“Behind every edited video, there is a lot that goes unseen,” Dr Sim says. “So the most important thing is to break the illusion of perfection.”