Social media influencers preach 'healthy eating' while modeling thinness, study finds

<p>This article examines how teenage girls in Sweden interpret and negotiate food-andhealth-relatedcontent on social media,paying particular attention to the intersections between eating practices, health, body ideals and femininity. It takes inspirationfrom feminist theoretical perspectives and is based on eight group interviews with 18 participants. The study exploreshow teenage girls interpret and negotiate such content and how they perceive its intended purposes. Although the interviewsexplicitly focused on food, discussions repeatedly shifted towards body ideals. The participants' discussions highlighted a tensionbetween anti-dietingdiscourses and the continued valorisation of slim bodies: influencers are expected to verbally distancethemselves from thinness ideals, yet their visual representations frequently reinforce them. Messages about ‘healthy eating’ wereoften interpreted as implicit endorsements of slimness, obscuring distinctions between health promotion and dieting culture.Representations of ‘junk food’ consumption in social media content was valued for counterbalancing restrictive discourses andfor signalling authenticity, yet it was also viewed with suspicion when perceived as staged or inauthentic. The kind of content thatparticipants described as most reassuring—content depicting ordinary, everyday eating without an explicit health or aestheticframing—was rare. Across the interviews, participants demonstrated considerable media literacy, recognising the commerciallogics shaping influencers' practices while simultaneously acknowledging that they were affected by the sheer volume of food-andbody-relatedmessages in their social media feeds.</p>