The commodification of health and happiness has become a concerning reality in the digital media landscape. The visual pollution of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram with destructive narratives surrounding what it should look like to feel healthy can promote the subconscious internalization of objective and often unfulfilling health and wellness regimens that, as Gramsci would suggest, fight for ideological hegemony and dominate discussion about health promotion in mediated public spaces (qtd. in Comor, 2016). From food trends and diet culture myths to obsessive expectations about body size, shape and caloric consumption, the digital media landscape has become a hub for normalizing streamlined assumptions about and one-size-fits-all approaches to achieving ‘ultimate’ health and happiness. TikTok and Instagram’s discursive environments perpetuate health myths that emphasize caloric intake and endorse objective lifestyle routines that model how to live up to #thatgirl status. Content policing restrictive diets, excessive exercise, hyper-thinness and weight loss is concerning for young female audiences who can easily acquire an obligation to subscribe to similar “health” regimens for the presumed benefit of their wellbeing.
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This paper will examine closely the rhetorical construction of health and wellness on TikTok and Instagram. Using Goffman’s (1967) dermatological model of social life and Foucault’s (2004) panoptic theory of control and self-discipline, this paper argues that popular food trends, diet culture myths and influencer health promotion on Instagram and TikTok streamline depictions of health and happiness and encourage the promotion of disordered eating behaviours and distorted self, body and health perceptions in young female platform users. First, this paper will unpack Butler’s (2004) notion of gender performativity to analyze the obsessive aestheticization of feminine physical appearance on TikTok and Instagram. Foucault’s (2004) panopticon and its self-disciplining effects will be discussed and parallel TikTok and Instagram’s ability to evoke psychological responses in users to conform to or self-brand in accordance with selective health myths and body standards coerced by #thatgirl standards. Then, it will draw on Bennett and Pfetsch’s (2018) concept of “networked gatekeeping” and Fraser’s (1990) idea of subaltern publics to discuss the cultural capital possessed by TikTok and Instagram’s diet and fitness cultures. By identifying popular social media food, health and wellness trends, this paper will also examine how the promotion of ‘clean’ eating, fitspiration and thinspiration content can trigger the onset of disordered health and eating perceptions. This paper will conclude by analyzing how celebrity ethos and entrepreneurial promotionalism is often used to garner attention and sell myths of healthism on TikTok and Instagram. Fordism’s commercialization and aestheticization of culture and politics will be discussed here to further contextualize the promotion of unrealistic thinness and lifestyle routines by influencers with high cultural merit and prominent media visibility.
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Like traditional Eurocentric beauty myths that overwhelmingly intrude upon and infiltrate the social feeds of many young women, representations of health, wellness and eating are highly stylized in contemporary social media spaces. Being often unsustainably depicted and staged to prioritize visual appeal, these representations can impose a rather deleterious effect on the actual preservation of mental and physical wellbeing (Xu, 2020). Fad diets, weight loss hacks and classic diet tropes are given priority visibility on TikTok and Instagram thereby continuing the promotion of the damaging health ideals at the core of deprivation culture’s ideological framework. Diet and food cultures can function as what Fraser (1990) terms a “subaltern public” online; these subcultures hide their implicit encouragement of faulty and restrictive behaviour around health and eating under a facade of wellness by using language and rhetoric that is seemingly health-positive and pro-self-optimization. Stylized depictions of health foods and meal presentation reinforce socially influenced understandings of food as tangible reflections of one’s health. Baker and Walsh (2020) explain how the representational power of food can function as an identificatory politics in itself: “Food and dietary choices operate as a central mode of identification, a way to define the self in relation to what we consume.” (1).
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A subjective understanding of health and wellness is thus devalued online -- not only by diet and deprivation subcultures, but also, as Pilgrim and Bohnet-Joschk (2019) suggest, via the inner workings of Western beauty advocacy. Aspirations to achieve picture perfect bodies (slim and toned physique, flawless skin and lustrous hair) are often heightened by health and appearance myths communicated by #thatgirl accounts. Health and beauty are thus not sold separately -- and this is especially noticed via the association commonly made, by online beauty communities, between clean eating and blemish free skin. Atherton (2021) suggests that the “moralized vocabularies” used by diet culture communities in relation to food and appearance encourage compliance with strict, objective rules and steps for securing ‘good’ health. Eating ‘clean,’ via the elimination of food groups like dairy, gluten and/or carbs, incorporating supplementation to quicken rates of noticeable physical results and restricting calories are some of the more common procedural requirements, as Xu (2020) suggests. When female users are told that strict, nutrient restrictive diets signal good health, they can feel intimidated by the tempestuous challenge to conform to similar social pressures. Being predicated on the harmful idea that good health equates to thinness, diet cultures uplift a problematic space online; one that works by indirectly pointing to that which young female users lack relative to the #thatgirl standard. By attempting to make skinny and undernourished a learned, applauded and universally attainable health achievement, diet culture exploits the intrinsic value of intuitive self-care.
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Moreover, there are several gendered expectations associated with achieving and branding #thatgirl status online. Baker and Walsh (2020) suggest that “despite the potential for user-generated content to challenge normative cultural values and conceptions of self, these visual representations can also reproduce hegemonic ideals pertaining to gender” (9). To get their followers on board, #thatgirl ambassadors on TikTok like Emily Mariko, Kaylie Stewart and Marie Anna commodify eating processes by showcasing their curated eating routines (some of which incorporate ASMR and/or food and body sexualization to amplify the food fetish appeal). By posting content that reinforces traditional gender roles and feminine appearance expectations that align with the Western beauty ideal, #thatgirl ambassadors work to both sell the legitimacy of their health achievement and confirm the “very slender female body type as ideal or beautiful” (Mills, Shannon and Hogue, 2017, 145). Likewise, self-objectification is integral to the gendered performance of health online. Butler (2004) suggests that objectification can instruct feminine subjectivities by indirectly tempting women to ‘perform’ the most “idealized version of their femininity” (193). On TikTok and Instagram, #thatgirl content becomes a sort of public spectacle subjected to the envious, lustful and desiring gaze of onlookers. The very commodification of health and beauty online fetishize the ways in which women and their bodies are positioned as objects of, what Mulvey (1999) terms, the male (and female) gaze. This passive gaze can elicit coercive conformity by capitalizing off appearance insecurities to match #thatgirl trends.
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Mask and Blanchard (2011) reveal that the adoption of streamlined, objective health approaches and nutrition perspectives can increase disordered eating and body image concerns. Similarly, Baker and Walsh (2020) find that “the ubiquity of the digital has transformed how many people consume food, and the meanings and discourses they ascribe to it” (p.2); this can greatly impact the safekeeping of healthy relationships with oneself, one’s body and with food and eating (Mask and Blanchard, 2011). #Thatgirl trends and “day-on-a-plate” posts present objective approaches to health promotion whereby ‘good’ health is defined primarily by body size, caloric consumption and nutritional intake. Rather than promoting an intuitive and inclusive approach to nutrition, wellness and self and body-love, #thatgirl trends instills fear and insecurities around appearance and weight gain (Atherton, 2021). Prolonged exposure to rhetoric promoting the thin ideal and orthorexic perspectives about healthy eating, as Hamadeh and Estepan (2018) suggest, can increase the normalization of eating disorders. Comparatively, Reategui and Palmer’s (2017) research names social comparison a prime culprit of body image disturbance and O’Brien’s (2015) research reveals an increase in distress when women compare themselves via their food choices, exercise regimens and body types. These two findings display how social media comparison (via food intake and appearance) can enable the “eating disorder voice to get louder” (O’Brein, 2015, 18). Essentially, then, #thatgirl rhetoric sells a constructed notion of ‘ideal’ health attainment by exploiting users’ insecurities and sense of self-security.
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Hashtags like #whatieatinaday, #fitspiration and #becomingthatgirl reinforce popular thinness and healthiness ideals and function as what Baker and Walsh (2020) describe as an “online affirmation ritual” (7). Marwick suggests that social media platforms are engineered to encourage affirmation seeking behaviour and that status is measured “by metrics, such as likes, followers, reposts and comments.” (qtd. in Baker and Walsh, 2020, 6). Baker and Walsh (2020) reference Goffman’s (1967) dramaturgical theory of social interaction to further contextualize how online affirmation can be seen as a form of social performance and symbolic cultural exchange motivated by recognition and validation. While much of the food-related content tagged under #thatgirl-related hashtags prioritize low calorie “what I eat in a day” posts and depictions of ‘clean’, green and seemingly nutritious meals, Hosie (2021) believes that these conceptions of health and healthy are just as much constructed as they are unsustainable: eating 1200 calories per day is simply unrealistic for the average person’s dietary and nutritional needs.
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TikTok’s #thatgirl advocates for a perfectionistic mentality whereby productivity, self-optimization and happiness is vetted by socially constructed standards of health, wellbeing and social worthiness. Manifesting, morning yoga and ‘healthy’ affirmation mantras streamline adherence to #thatgirl’s promotion of idealized lifestyles. Baker and Walsh (2020) suggest that #thatgirl accounts and content “convey not only the discourses behind the clean eating movement, but how food and the body are used to symbolize the moral character and identity of the user.” (2). Bennet and Pfetch’s (2018) concept of “networked gatekeeping” alludes to TikTok and Instagram’s visual prioritization of content that aligns with the popular opinion of those who identify as part of #thatgirl’s subaltern public online (Fraser, 1990). Glamorized diet and wellness routines achieved seemingly effortlessly have taken precedence over mindful eating and intuitive self-care; Fardouly et al. discuss this communicated illusion of minimal effort, saying that “if the appearance of women reflecting the thin ideal is perceived as more personally attainable, the exposure to images of these women could have a greater influence on body image.” (qtd. in Bauer 2020, 5). Alternatively, #thatgirl eating and lifestyle standards may, on the other hand, feel complex, costly and daunting, making productivity and self-love feel unachievable for some (Reategui and Palmer, 2017).
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Orthorexia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa pertain to subsets of disordered behaviour associated with eating (Turner and Lefevre, 2017). While the former is characterized by an unhealthy obsession with clean eating and healthy food, the latter is concerned with obsessive thoughts around maintaining low body weight. #Thatgirl culture feeds a sort of orthorexic cultural adherence using rhetoric that markets health under food restriction, moderation and diet surveillance (Xu, 2020). When users become attuned to the idea that thin is most desirable, the hypocritical and counter-productive health activism exercised by #thatgirl shines through.
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By using their platforms to endorse narrow health, appearance, fitness and eating ideals, celebrities can indirectly feed users’ insecurities and oblige them to internalize unrealistic ways of attaining self-love and confidence (Mills, Shannon and Hogue, 2017). Indexed promotional entrepreneurialism is often undertaken by influencers and celebrates online; Wallis (2021) explains the tendency of celebrities to sell a fictive sense of control or “self-optimizing sabotage” (para 7) wherein toxic self-improvement is inspirationalized as self-care. By reinforcing visual standards of what ‘good’ health and wellness should look and feel like daily, celebrities that embody the #thatgirl look commend a dangerous diet mentality whereby feeling good and being successful, in one’s personal hustle and wellness lifestyle, requires hyper-fixation on unhealthy narcissistic promotion (Wallis, 2021). Fordism’s commercialization and aestheticization of culture reinforces the very branding of wellness as a commercialized way of life; as a transaction made by users in exchange for attention, views and adherence to platform standards. Pilgrim and Bohnet-Joschk (2019) note that young women buy into diet culture trends and myths when they try trendy food dishes, fad diets, juice cleanses and other influencer-endorsed dieting hacks and show them on their social feeds to improve the standing of their #thatgirl status. By attributing associative labels to food like “Gigi Hadid’s Pasta,” for example, expectations of beauty, desirability and thinness can be implied and reinforced. Pilgrim and Bohnet-Joschko (2019) name this as an effort to “define diet and exercise as factors to be controlled for body perfection.” (1). Fad diets like Keto are also often sold as health diets by celebrities with little knowledge on how to implement macronutrient restrictive diets adequately; this is one way in which celebrities can blindly encourage restrictive eating (Hamadeh and Estepan, 2018). Khloe Kardashian’s posts about her favourite detox teas, waist trainers and diet routines, for example, demonstrate the commodification of the thin ideal alongside health and wellness online.
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By associating some foods with weight gain and others with weight loss, diet culture rhetoric often instills fear in weight gain and calories and replaces real nutrition advocacy with unhealthy and unsustainable prevention-oriented approaches. Atherton (2021) explains that “fear foods” are often named according to their high number of calories (7); this demonstrates the extent to which thinness is valourized, commodified and sold as inspirational online. Content posted under #thinspiration and #fitspiration hashtags often commend, via number of likes and engagement, visual depictions of personified undernourishment, hyper-thinness and thigh gaps. Popular TikTok influencers like Demi Bagby often use their platforms to validate their achievement of ‘fitness’ and ‘healthiness’ without realizing the negative effects of this subliminal body policing (and shaming, frankly). These influencers can reinforce standards of appearance perfection and “indirectly contribute to diet culture in the way they invite comparison — sometimes even explicitly between food intake and appearance” (Hosie, 2021, para 29). By mobilizing the minimal-effort, low-maintenance approach to wellness using classic wellness tropes like meditation, yoga, journaling and intermittent fasting, #thatgirl sells a conflated notion of ease associated with being healthy and trendy. The sustainable attainment of health and wellness is not, however, as straightforward as it is made to look online. Pilgrim and Bohnet-Joschk (2019) name this influencer-communicated promise of a simplified approach to appearance and health optimization as “key to happiness” (2) in the eyes of aspiring female onlookers. Trends like Emily Mariko’s salmon recipe, natures cereal, Aloe Vera detoxing and immunity ginger shots exemplify the visual capital possessed by food imagery on TikTok and Instagram. #Thatgirl rhetoric can not only hypocritically intensify the normalization of disordered eating behaviours and health perceptions (O’Brien, 2015), but can also promote a faulty nutrition mentality whereby deprivation and thinness supersede actual wellbeing. #Thatgirl is a brand of its own; one that flourishes by showing users to a version of themselves they wish to become. Standards coerced by the surveillance and instrumental power of TikTok and Instagram’s #thatgirl brand continue to redefine health as an objective category that requires complicit devotion and attentive adherence to in order to secure ‘optimal’ wellness. Foucault’s (2004) panoptic theory is at the center of the structure of conformity enforced by #thatgirl standards; this is because diet culture myths of healthism often assert disciplinary force over young female users to either jump on the trend or live under this socially valourized standard.
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