The Impact of Diet Culture on TCU Female Students

Diet Culture and Social Media

Social media plays a significant role in perpetuating and amplifying diet culture. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are often used to showcase idealized images of thinness, fitness, and beauty, reinforcing the notion that achieving a certain body type is desirable and achievable.

Here is how social media contributes to diet culture:

1. Influencers & Celebrities: Many social media influencers and celebrities promote dieting, detoxes, and other weight loss strategies to maintain their perceived ideal bodies. They will often endorse products such as detox teas, meal replacement shakes, or diet plans, which can perpetuate unrealistic standards and unhealthy behaviors.

2. Filtering and Editing: Social media platforms provide tools for users to enhance their photos with filters and editing apps, leading to the proliferation of unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards. Images are often heavily edited to smooth out imperfections and create the illusion of flawless bodies, further extending the idea that one must look a certain way to be considered attractive or healthy.

3. Fad Diets and Trends: Social media platforms are breeding grounds for the rapid spread of fad diets and wellness trends. From keto and intermittent fasting to juice cleanses and detoxes, these trends ofter promise quick fixes for weight loss but can be unsustainable and even harmful in the long run.

4. Before and After Transformations: Social media is flooded with before-and-after photos showcasing dramatic weight loss transformations. While these posts may appear as inspirational, they often fail to account for the extreme measures taken to achieve such results and can contribute to the misconception that weight loss is easy and achievable for everyone.

Diet Culture and Mental Health

Diet culture can have profound effects on mental health, often leading to negative outcomes for individuals who internalize its messages and behaviors. The system is designed to be successful in the short-term but ultimately fails, and will give you new solutions that will also lead to failure. This non-stop cycle promotes deprivation and restriction, and makes normal eating habits and food the enemy. When the human body is deprived of its essential nutrients, one's immunity and focus decreases and irritability increases. These small changes fuel a range of negative outcomes such as body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, weight stigma, and interpersonal conflict. Negative views and assumptions stimulate diet culture because they further push the stigma that thinness is the only way to be healthy. People who face this stigma are more likely to engage in disordered eating and will avoid proper exercise. They are also more likely to have low self-esteem and negative body image, and suffer from depression and anxiety.

Diet Culture on College Campuses

College students are immersed in a stressful environment, which makes them more susceptible to developing eating disorders. Students may feel pressure to adhere to certain beauty standards promoted by diet culture, leading to body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors. Some colleges may inadvertently promote diet culture through wellness programs that focus solely on weight loss rather than promoting ways to improve one's overall well-being. Dining halls and dormitory environments can also sometimes encourage unhealthy eating habits or restrict food choices, furthering disordered eating behaviors. TCU is known for being a pretty people campus. With the popularity of Greek life, the significant female to male ratio, and the campus beauty reputation, constant comparison is likely to be a major issue.

Surveying TCU Female Students

I conducted a survey to see if there was a correlation between diet culture and eating disorders at TCU. The survey was kept open for two weeks and 96 female students submitted responses.

An analysis of the results show many female students struggled with disordered eating prior to college, but that it worsened through their time at TCU. It is unclear what the underlying factor contributing to the high number of eating disorders on campus, but some survey participants voiced having poor relationships with food and dieting.

Science vs The Trends

The science of nutrition and diet culture trends often stand in stark contrast to one another. Nutrition science aims to provide evidence-based guidance for promoting health and well-being. Diet culture trends often perpetuate myths, misinformation, and harmful behaviors that can have negative consequences for physical and mental health. There is a lot of misinformation in the field of nutrition as anybody, in the state of Texas, can call themselves a nutritionist. This leads to individuals thinking they are doing healthy dieting, when in reality they are not. It is important that individuals critically evaluate nutrition information and seek guidance from qualified health professionals when making informed decisions about their dietary choices.

Samantha Davis, an associate professor in the department of nutritional sciences at TCU, sees diet culture effecting her students first hand. "The reason I feel like I have the finger on the pulse is because I have the big class, and people come up and ask questions during class or come up afterwards and ask me personal questions," said Davis. Davis teaches the clinical side of nutrition and works on teaching students what healthy eating actually looks like. "I use my lectures to try and portray what is normal type nutrition, what is healthy eating, not going into fads or popular things at the time, said Davis. I use it in my class because especially in the big class it reaches far more."

One problem that Davis noticed several of her students doing was labeling foods in extremes. She says that taking the morality out of foods can rebuild a positive relationship. "There are key words that people gravitate towards like clean and cleanse and toxic and processed...trying to redefine that thought is part of the culture, said Davis. I am trying to change the way students think about these highly loaded words." In addition to combating the negative stigma surrounding foods, Davis makes sure her students are aware of the adequate resources available right on campus.

On-Campus Resources

TCU provides several services to help students form healthy eating habits and education on nutrition. Students can visit the Health Center, Counseling Center, or make an appointment with the new campus dietician. The Health Center does not treat eating disorders, but they can refer students to The Eating Recovery Center, which they have partnered with here in Fort Worth. The Eating Recovery Center has an intensive outpatient group (IOP), which meets weekly on campus. This is the first year that TCU has offered an on-campus dietician that is accessible to all students. Maddie Jacobs, TCU's campus dietician, counsels students on nutrition, primarily navigating dining on campus and food allergies. Jacobs also coordinates health and wellness events across campus through the Healthy Frog Program. In order to combat misinformation on nutrition, Jacobs provides accurate information that is easily accessible to all. "Education is really important to me and I do that through my social media page on instagram, I do nutrition education, recipes, and helping students find options on campus that fit their needs as well, said Jacobs. My favorite thing that we do is every week we do a myth or fact poll where we ask students about a common misconception about nutrition...which has been a very powerful tool in combating misinformation." In addition, Jacobs has put on several events that promote mindful eating. Her most recent event was the spring farmers market in the commons.