#Eatingclean: The Impossible Dream
From açaí to chia, gojis to yogis, Deviance takes a look into the perceived glamour of eating clean on Instagram
New Year, as per, will for many mark the start of a ‘new you’. A new lifestyle, a new outlook. And for lots of us, a new body, too. After all, those inner-beauty mantras which excused our festive indulgences are easily eroded when we log back into our digital worlds, saturated by #bodygoals, #fitspiration and #healthychoices.
Fashion magazines no longer set the bodily dogmas. Today, we live by the gospel according to the Kardashians and Jenners. With every new Instagram comes a new trend, thigh gaps one week to thigh brows the next. For the record, I’m of the opinion that access to Instagram is a cause for celebration. It allows us to assert our own body image and control its representation. But it’s a double-edged sword, and a certain danger is present when we take glamorous fitspo feeds at face value, following them in the same sheep-like manner we adopt fashion trends.
Take the #eatclean trend. “What could possibly be wrong with encouraging a healthy lifestyle?” I hear you cry between mouthfuls of raw cauliflower and cacao. Nothing – on the surface. But looking deeper, there’s potential for innocent #brunch shots to become obsessional – an insidious fixation on curating a healthy online identity.
On top of this, the thousands of Instagram fitness accounts – which multiply daily – propagate a priority to look, not simply be, fit. Commenters obsess over the visuals, seeking cues, symbols and hashtags to regurgitate onto their own amateur feeds. Fitspiration may have replaced ‘thinspiration’, but is this just semantics? We’re told we need to look healthy more than feel it – if your waist’s wider than your iPhone, you aren’t trying hard enough. Because really, if your BMI falls in the real world and no one is around to hashtag it, did it really fall at all?
More from Deviance:
Working out – A guide to sexercise
In the deep end: Skinny dipping in Glasgow
And the side effects don’t stop at thumb-regional repetitive strain injury and a compulsion to hashtag. Orthorexia, an eating disorder which leaves sufferers obsessional about eating only healthy foods, is truly on the rise. Lifestyle blogger Jordan Younger, formerly known as The Blonde Vegan, hit headlines last year when she opened up about her own experience with the disorder.
Like many, Jordan considered a plant-based diet the solution to all her food-related woes, with each like and additional follower encouraging her. Juice cleanses prompted a downward spiral of self-consciousness and food phobia and malnutrition. “I cleansed, got too hungry, broke down and ate solid food, felt terribly guilty, and rededicated myself to another cleanse”.
Spending more time on our phones than we do sleeping, we’re consumed by a need to document what we eat, drink, wear and do. Let’s be honest, life looks better in a Valencia filter, offering a faux-natural, glamorised version of ourselves and everyday activities. Instagram brings us closer to lifestyles that seem attainable, but are they really? Victoria’s Secret models may have amazing bodies exemplifying #goals, but the fitness accounts reposting their pictures neglect to mention their $109-a-day diet.
It’s no longer enough just to be healthy; we must be hashtag healthy. When our social media profiles define ourselves more than anything else, it’s important to focus on what makes us happy rather than an anonymous online community. We’re more than our virtual profiles, so why should we let them dictate our realities?