Why are we so obsessed with ‘What I Eat In A Day’ videos?

Thanks to Youtube, Instagram and TikTok, we have front-row seats to the diets of some of the most aspirational people including athletes, actors, influencers and even Victoria’s Secret models. Why are they so problematic though?

An inside look at the way that Kim Kardashian organises her refrigerator? Sign me up. Knowing that Kareena Kapoor Khan’s cheat meal comprises a burger and fries? Yes please. It’s always fun to find out that the actor you love relies on a simple honey and turmeric concoction first thing in the morning, and the musician you follow actually eats cinnamon toast crunch for breakfast over the sink.

People love to be walked through a routine—how to eat, how to exercise, how they should start their mornings. When they see a young and fit influencer or celebrity making claims that they eat a certain way, start their morning with a certain breakfast, cut out specific foods or add in others, they think they may be able to achieve that look. The idea behind this is that perhaps you, too, will achieve the physique and glow of Romee Strijd or Sanne Vloet or Mishti Pandey, if you just follow their simple diets.

Why do we love knowing what other people are eating?

My Instagram feed is chock-full of food diaries and ‘What I Eat in a Day’ videos, and the numbers prove it. There are 734,000 posts with that hashtag on Instagram, and the top 10 WIEIAD videos on Youtube have over 135 million views.

Sumaya Dalmia—a fitness expert and founder of SUMAYA—gets why these videos are so popular. “Seeing food videos can help you get out of your own diet rut. Oftentimes, you might see recipes that you don’t know, with ingredients you might already use, so you get ideas to try something new. That’s why food content does so well,” she says. If you’re used to eating in just one kind of way, seeing what someone who you follow or look up to eats can give you ideas to start creating meals outside of your comfort zone. You might give chia puddings a try because your favourite influencer eats them every morning, and you might start remembering to eat more nuts and seeds because it is reinforced through the content you consume online. A little voyeuristic intrigue is always par for the course—there’s nothing wrong with knowing what other people are up to if the content is available for you to view and enjoy.

The entertainment value of these food diaries is undeniable—it always includes well-plated meals that look great in photos, a perfect table set-up along with garnishes to make even the simplest of meals appear restaurant-worthy. “However, it can be problematic when short, perfectly staged clips of one person’s eating habits misinform others’ understanding of what their own eating habits should look like, or reinforce the idea that there is a singular definition of what’s healthy,” says Ishani Vellodi Reddy, a London-based wellness entrepreneur and nutritionist.

Why won’t they work for you?

“The first thing to keep in mind is that social media offers only a curated fraction of people’s lives, and food is no exception to this. When it comes to celebrities and influencers, it’s a part of their job to churn out content that looks good. As a consumer of that content, however, you have to remember to separate the aesthetics from the actual nutritional value of what it’s depicting. How something looks has very little to do with how good it is for you,” says Vellodi Reddy. Just because someone may be eating raw salads and a green smoothie everyday, it might not translate into being a nourishing, well-balanced meal for you and your lifestyle.

Vellodi Reddy confirms that while there are some fundamentals that should be a part of any good eating pattern, what works perfectly for one person very rarely works the same way for another, and these things can (and should) look different. “Trying to copy someone else’s eating habits is sort of like copying answers during an exam, when each of us is actually taking a completely different exam,” she says.

The thing is, there are no rigid guidelines of what a healthy diet looks like. “There is no one perfect pill or one perfect diet,” says Mona Sharma, a holistic nutritionist and wellness advocate. Knowing what works for you is a long process, and requires so much trial and error, based on your lifestyle, genetics, energy needs and body composition. TL;DR: what works for a tall, white, thin supermodel living in California won’t work for you.

Social media is for sharing, isn’t it?

A quick scroll through the top-performing videos online, and you’ll see that a lot of them are accompanied by disclaimers. “Healthy and unrestrictive,” says one. “Don’t promote diet culture,” says another. One even says “eating disorder recovery friendly,” in the headline. But the thing is, what is healthy and unrestrictive for one person might not be so for another, which is where the crux of the problem lies.

The idea of “if I eat this, I’ll look a certain way and be happier,” perpetuates diet culture, because it tells you that if you’re not eating a certain way, you’re doing it wrong. Plus, it also tells you that if you’re following this eating pattern and not reaching the size or shape you’re aiming for, you’ve failed at your goal. You’ll so rarely see people of different body shapes and types in these videos—if you’re bigger, shorter or not fit enough, most consumers aren’t clicking on your videos to see what you’re eating or how you’re cooking your meals.

“Disordered eating is something that comes up with my clients daily. For so many people, we have to unlearn years or decades of dieting, deprivation and marketing around the perfect meal plan to get the perfect body. This takes time and consistency because we have to create a new belief system around the power of food, nutrition and self-image, with freedom of self-criticism. Otherwise, our society is trained to go on diet after diet, achieving only short-term results and long-term frustration and self-blame,” says Sharma.

Relying on ‘What I Eat in a Day’ videos to decide how you eat by comparing your meals to those of others can dismiss your own nutritional needs. “As tempting as it may be to assume that someone has found the ultimate solution or some golden shortcut because they’re in great shape and seem to be in great health, only really means they’ve found the solution that works for them, and are probably putting in a whole lot more work than what you’re seeing on social media,” says Vellodi Reddy.

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