Diet Culture Digital Detox

By Natalie Vertoudakis- Registered Psychologist

 During behavioural consultations we have a lot of questions about whether it is beneficial to follow “fitness inspo” pages, weight loss/surgical weight loss pages or meal prep pages. 

While you might have good intentions in following social media influencers who post about exercise, diet and weight loss – it does not always have the desired effect.  

Think about it; in 2024 we spend a lot of time on our devices and specifically, a lot of time on social media. When we follow these pages, it can start to have negative effects on our psychology around weight management in the following ways: 

• Can cause a fixation on strict dieting and restriction. (This can lead to emotional eating and sabotage)

• Triggers unhealthy food/exercise/body comparisons with others 

• Triggers algorithms on social media to inundate our feed with diet culture 

• Leads to fixating on Kg’s lost on the scale rather than meaningful health outcomes 

• Leads to low motivation and self-esteem 

Here’s some psychological tips for social media use during a weight management program; 

• Crete a separate social media account to follow any pages you’re interested in with recipes/exercises 

• Monitor healthy usage; as with all social media use, we should monitor the amount of time we spend online daily  

• Avoid use of social media within the first 30 minutes of waking and last 30 minutes before bed 

• Avoid “checking behaviours” – this means avoiding accessing these accounts when you’re in an anxious state to avoid negative comparisons 

• Mute or block any triggering accounts  

• Run the online advice by your BMI allied health clinician – especially if you find it contradictory to advice provided by your health professionals