Eating healthy and erasing culture: Drawing on public opinion

In the age of social media and erasure culture, advocates of healthy eating have come under fire for the comments they share online. Already a controversial topic, different public opinions about healthy foods and influencers are another challenge to making the right choices for your family.

Demystifying healthy food: Understanding social media and demystifying culture

Eating healthy is an important goal. Getting the right nutrients — and avoiding too many unhealthy ingredients — is essential to feeling good, staying healthy and promoting long-term health for your family.

However some social media influencers who promote healthy food, home cooked food and unprocessed ingredients seem to be getting deleted. Some viewers object to the false lifestyles, unrealistic values ​​and extremes that social media can lead to.

How erasing culture affects people who influence lifestyles

Gretchen Adler, an influencer with nearly half a million followers on Instagram, promotes foods made from scratch and avoids all processed products. Her videos of making Goldfish crackers and Cheez-Its from scratch have embraced her attitude for what some see as overly restrictive views on food.

Hannah Neelman, a local resident and social media influencer in Utah, is raising her eight children while participating in beauty campaigns. For many, Neelman embodies the concept of the trad woman, a recent cultural phenomenon that describes a woman who focuses her life on being a mother and homemaker. She, too, advocates healthy, home-cooked meals for all her family’s meals and has experienced social media storms.

These comments are part of a larger culture of deletion that has affected many influencers and celebrities in recent years. According to Deputy, erasing culture involves abandoning a person or a name, and using social media as a platform for further commentary on the issue.

Choosing healthy foods for your family has been a painful discussion for years. In the process of clearing the person for something good, like eating healthy food, a new perspective can make these decisions even more difficult.

How does a culture of influence encourage healthy eating?

Health influencers have a large audience on social media. Forbes notes that #health on Instagram has more than 165 million messages. Many of these conversations can be valuable. They promote change, share valuable information and sell products and services that help.

But there are no requirements to be a persuasive person. Anyone can share information if they have real knowledge to back it up. Influencer marketing can distort the quality of content when companies pay influencers to promote their products.

The reality of healthy eating with busy lives and grocery budgets

There is a sense of confusion among the various concerns that viewers raise about health food influencers. In recent years, there has been a backlash against social media for the irrational values ​​it creates. Hannah Messinger at Penn Medicine News talks about how the systematic way people post on social media has led to negative perceptions of everything from body image to lifestyle.

When it comes to healthy eating, many motivational videos and blogs don’t show what goes on behind the scenes to make homemade food. Published content is often carefully edited, removing any context of the influencer’s lifestyle.

For example, Neelman’s husband is the millionaire son of JetBlue founder David Neelman. Their family also hires a house cleaner. This lifestyle is far from the reality of many American mothers who must work to support their families, reducing the time they have to find ingredients and cook from scratch. .

In his video on making homemade Cheez-Its, Adler reveals that the process takes 18 hours. He also uses einkorn flour, which costs about three times as much as wheat flour. . This schedule and cost is simply unaffordable for most American families on a regular basis and some people are fighting back against social media influencers who seem out of touch with reality.

Influencers can share ideas with them, whether they believe them or use arguments for ideas and discussions. When it comes to healthy eating, this can come across as pushy parents who don’t have the time, money or energy to conform to the lifestyles that influencers prescribe.

Balance for healthy eating

Making your own bread, raising cows for milk, refusing any cooked food and other dedicated methods shown on social media are more than most families can afford. In fact, it is possible to eat clean on a budget and make the right decisions in a limited amount of time. Small changes in your family routine can provide many of the benefits that social media influencers talk about without a total lifestyle change.

Recipes for soups, salads and casseroles require little time to prepare and can provide your family with nutritious, homemade dinners. Chicken rice soup is infused with lean protein and replaces white rice with nutrient-dense wild rice. With complete control over the recipe, you can choose the ingredients you feel good about.

Some small swaps, such as swapping out traditional produce or meat for organic options or adding whole grains to recipes, allow you to tailor your meals to your budget and your family’s tastes. . For example, coconut oil popsicles replace butter for coconut oil with its healthy fats, allowing you to continue enjoying your favorite snacks with a healthy twist.

Add more vegetables and fruits to your favorite foods. Avocado tuna salad or spinach in a box of mac and cheese offers the convenience of store-bought meals by adding vitamins with minimal effort.

Finding your way to healthy eating

Social media has made healthy eating a process. While making healthy food choices is still important, society’s debate between real options and extreme motivational factors makes those choices more difficult.

Ultimately, each family must make their own decisions about their lives. However, this should not happen without a social context. Choosing what your family eats should take into account time, money, culture and advice from health professionals. With all these variations, health goals will look different for every family. Social media can be a source of inspiration and community but it is not a definitive guide to raising a healthy family.

Sharon Rhodes is the creative force behind the food blog The Honor System. A lover of all things homemade, Sharon is an experienced recipe keeper with a focus on healthy cooking and making baking accessible to all.