How social media is affecting our relationship with food

If you scroll through instagram, it would appear that the whole worlds finds healthy eating easy. We see countless buddah bowls, beautiful acai bowl, rainbow wraps too pretty to eat and avocado, oh so much avocado. But obesity is on the rise and poor diet choices remain the biggest killer on the planet. So clearly something is a miss; there is a clear disparity between what we post and what we eat.

Being very much embedded in the world of healthy eating I see every angle of how social is impacting peoples food choices, but also how it is shaping the way we look at our diet and how it makes us feel. I know that if I post something to do with avocados it will get double the amount of likes than anything else. We are incredibly picky with what we chose to like on social and this pickiness is seeping into our diet choices.

Having a healthy relationship with food is so important. And so I have devised a few practical tips for disconnecting from social when it comes to food. I asked the team in our office to try them out, and they all agreed that it made them appreciate the food they were eating more, and actually made them feel more relaxed in general:

• Don’t look at any screens during meal times. We're all guilty of swiping through our Instagram feed while grabbing lunch at our desk, but put that phone down, leave it on your desk and get outside!
• Focus on the enjoyment of cooking as it can relieve stress (even if it doesn’t produce something delicious)
• Stop needing to eat with you eyes…. Make a dish that is really tasty but really ugly, so that no matter what angle you work it wont look good on social!
• Make a beautiful spread with no intention of posting – make a point of it and acknowledge how much more you enjoy the experience without the expectation of how many likes you will get lingering in your head while you eat said food!
• Listen to what your body is telling you. Be mindful, you can't do that whilst listening to all the noise around us. Don’t let Instagram tell you what to eat, listen to your body. You will reap the benefit.