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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Social media - Skinny Celebs cooking/eating!!

29 replies

Keepgoing88 · 05/10/2023 23:03

ok… bear with me… I have wondered this for a while… my social media feeds are often full of skinny celebs cooking and ‘eating’ (obv never show quite how much they eat!) food… often high calorie food. Does this bug anyone else or is it just me?!! I don’t know why but I can’t help thinking these videos about food etc are quite misleading in the sense of to a young impressionable person it looks like ‘they can eat that and still be skinny why can’t i’. Maybe I’m looking into it too much as often the celebs in question doesn’t talk about how much of it they ate etc but the images and videos still give the impression of indulgence if that makes sense. Does anyone else feel these images / videos are a bit ‘wrong’ eg damaging or am I just being silly!!?

OP posts:
Keepgoing88 · 05/10/2023 23:04

A close friend of mine had an eating disorder as a teen and she was ‘obsessed’ with cooking food for everyone else, just not really eating any themselves and I’ve heard that is quite common with eating disorders.

OP posts:
Boomboom22 · 05/10/2023 23:06

Surely it's the other way round, it is good to show eating proper food. And I don't believe at all you need to diet to be thin, listen to your body is all. Most people who are overweight eat the diet food and diet coke etc which is fake food so your body thinks it is starving and retains every bit of fat etc.

LoopyLooooo · 05/10/2023 23:07

I've genuinely never taken an interest in what complete strangers do/don't eat.

And I would suggest that by and large the people who do, will probably have a pretty poor relationship with food anyway.

Keepgoing88 · 05/10/2023 23:07

Not thought of it like that… good point!

OP posts:
WhateverMate · 05/10/2023 23:09

Why are your social media feeds full of things like this?

Is it something to do with algorithms/browsing history?

Keepgoing88 · 05/10/2023 23:10

I don’t know?! I think I probably exaggerated somewhat they aren’t really completely full just a lot on instagram!

OP posts:
Keepgoing88 · 05/10/2023 23:11

I do use my phone to look up recipes to cook fairly often so maybe that’s it?

OP posts:
Lastqueenofscotland2 · 05/10/2023 23:12

I’d much rather that than the people I see promoting utter bollocks pseudoscience diets, or eating tiny amounts while burning thousands of calories a day

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 05/10/2023 23:15

100% agree- two very skinny celebs come to
mind who have taken pics shovelling pizza or talk about how they eat so much- most people I know eat a lot gain weight, the implication that that’s abnormal is frustrating.

WhateverMate · 05/10/2023 23:19

I don't think they can win to be honest.

I'd rather see them cooking and eating food than flogging diet shakes and promoting weird diets.

Perhaps the best advice parents can give their kids is to ignore all this nonsense and stop following these people.

But the trouble is, it's very often the parents who are into the nonsense, so the apple isn't likely to fall too far from the tree.

CarPour · 05/10/2023 23:21

Yes. I know exactly the content you mean. Very slim celebs cooking pretty unhealthy food

They don't eat what they cook, at least not much of it. I agree it's damages as it feeds into the idea that if you can't maintain a size 6 figure eating burgers and chips there's something wrong with you. It's also damaging because it's a lie, I highly doubt they eat the food they cook

It's not like cooking healthy food or like meat and veg style dinners. It's like heavy creamy pastas, lots of cheese etc

Autumnunmasks · 05/10/2023 23:22

Which celebs?

WhateverMate · 05/10/2023 23:25

CarPour · 05/10/2023 23:21

Yes. I know exactly the content you mean. Very slim celebs cooking pretty unhealthy food

They don't eat what they cook, at least not much of it. I agree it's damages as it feeds into the idea that if you can't maintain a size 6 figure eating burgers and chips there's something wrong with you. It's also damaging because it's a lie, I highly doubt they eat the food they cook

It's not like cooking healthy food or like meat and veg style dinners. It's like heavy creamy pastas, lots of cheese etc

I think this is also a damaging thought process..."They don't eat what they cook".

How do you know they don't?

You are aware that unhealthy foods are absolutely fine in moderation and will make no difference at all to weight gain?

There seems to be this weird myth on MN that slim people never eat burgers, chips and pizza.

panelbottle · 05/10/2023 23:28

It's the whole image/social media thing though isn't it like how many pretend they haven't had surgery or whatever.

PeachSchnapps4 · 05/10/2023 23:30

Skinny people can - and do - eat high calorie foods. I don’t know why that’s surprising.

You’re not seeing the average of their diets over an entire week; you’re seeing just one meal they’re making.

They could be eating salad/veg/protein all week and then eating a cheat meal (or two) at the weekend.

I’m a size 6-8 and eat junk food weekly, but I also run a lot, walk everywhere & eat pretty healthily 80% of the time.

I eat chips, pizza, chocolate, cheesey pasta etc frequently! My maintenance calories are around 2,200 per day - it’s a fair amount to play with.

CarPour · 06/10/2023 08:26

WhateverMate · 05/10/2023 23:25

I think this is also a damaging thought process..."They don't eat what they cook".

How do you know they don't?

You are aware that unhealthy foods are absolutely fine in moderation and will make no difference at all to weight gain?

There seems to be this weird myth on MN that slim people never eat burgers, chips and pizza.

Because the implication is they eat like that everyday. Daily there will be high calorie meals

And it's damaging because either they don't eat all the food they cook, or they have to restrict significantly in order to be able to eat that. And that's not posted. It's not a true reflection of their diet

I know that they aren't eating a 1500kcal + meal every evening alongside a healthy diet.

And if that's one meal how come they aren't posting the low calorie, healthier meals? There's an image they are purposefully trying to portray and it's unrealistic.

PeachSchnapps4 · 07/10/2023 12:20

They’re not posting the healthy meals because who wants to see a plate of chicken, broccoli and rice?

I doubt they’re posting huge calorific meals daily either.

Also sometimes what seems unhealthy isn’t even that calorific

MsPloddingBottom · 07/10/2023 13:10

Im sorry but skinny people enjoying food annoys you op? I really don't get this. They're slim. They cook food they like.

How in hell is that damaging? I'd say instagram bombarding young girls with images and music videos of the perfect hourglass body and BBLs is more damaging than seeing some middle aged mum cooking a meal for her family.

theduchessofspork · 07/10/2023 13:24

Well all SM feeds are edited highlights ie fiction, but better to be shown eating normally than on some mad diet

HRTQueen · 07/10/2023 13:25

I think depends on age I could eat and eat until late 30’s and developed a health issue and my weight hardly changed and I wasn’t that person who goes to the gym/runs always on the go

i have a few friends that are very slim and eat what they like and huge amounts some are very energetic and exercise some are not one friend is so laid back and eats so much rubbish food we laugh at how ridiculously lucky she is

some people are just very lucky and stay slim some put in a huge amount of effort (their overall lifestyle certainly helps) and some will start again tomorrow (like myself) I may have initially put on a lot of weight because of health reasons and it’s harder to loose weight it is possible but I just cba to make the effort and that is my doing

TheKeatingFive · 07/10/2023 13:28

Well, most people cannot eat high calorie food at every meal and stay thin. In that sense, yanbu.

But I'd also expect most people to have the wit to understand that what celebs present on instagram isn't likely to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so in that sense yabu.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 07/10/2023 13:40

They get more views with tags related to cakes, baking, pizza, loving cooking, family mealtime, etc. Nothing more than that, it's just ways to maximise views/evidence their 'reach' and therefore improve their marketability to companies.

They may have a genuinely healthy, balanced diet with a relaxed attitude towards calorifically dense foods that enables them to effortlessly maintain their body shape and looks (and let's face it, they're already winners in genetics by and large to be deemed attractive enough to be famous/influencers, so being able to do that without much worry is reasonable). They might actually live on fuck all other than junk and appetite suppressants. The cakes might never pass their lips and go straight into the bin without suitably photogenic people to be filmed eating them. They may do this because it makes them money and then engage in ED behaviours to mitigate the effects outside shoots.

Whatever the reality is, they've decided, often with advice, that they stand to make the most money from those foods rather than going for the slightly more niche subject of meal prep/resistance training/health nutrition. Especially if their target audience is, for example, the affluent twenty something female consumer, going on to the affluent early 30s mums (add in Christian if it's the American demographic they're targeting) or the twenty something mum of a toddler in the UK where the influencer wants them to identify with her ready for a collaboration with B&M or something.

It's about money. And the sort of money some of those people can pull in from a quintuple chocolotta ten tier cake/etc is more than they can make from multiple tubs of Salmon, rice and broccoli with chicken breast to mix things up a bit from time to time - especially when the latter will also benefit from a considerably more athletic lifestyle so their body is the product as much as the surroundings.

LindorDoubleChoc · 07/10/2023 15:37

Sophie Dahl and her BBC baking show annoyed me for this reason. She lost a lot of weight meaning that she will have to be forever vigilant for the rest of her life to keep it off. I don't believe for one second that she routinely cooks and eats the kind of food (many desserts and cakes) as shown on her show.

It's a well known fact that very slender celebrities lie about how they keep their weight down and then, wouldn't you know, a few years later comes a news article about their years of eating disorder hell.

LindorDoubleChoc · 07/10/2023 15:40

TheKeatingFive · 07/10/2023 13:28

Well, most people cannot eat high calorie food at every meal and stay thin. In that sense, yanbu.

But I'd also expect most people to have the wit to understand that what celebs present on instagram isn't likely to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so in that sense yabu.

Of course most people have the wit to know that what gets posted on Instagram is often fictional. That's what's so annoying about it. Why do people go along with these bare faced lies, why do people think it's ok to make money out of it?

TheKeatingFive · 07/10/2023 20:13

Why do people go along with these bare faced lies, why do people think it's ok to make money out of it?

Well people are not required to corroborate it. Just as no one on instagram is required to represent the truth, warts and all.

If you follow/engage with these people, then you're tacitly supporting the media and all that goes along with it. If you don't want to do that, then fine, don't engage. You are not under any obligation to whatsoever.

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