Rice Pudding and Protein Shakes

Being a former Waldorf school student, I grew up eating homemade food, some of it Demeter-certified. From rice pudding with cinnamon and sugar to vegetarian school meals, fruit from the school garden, and fresh milk from Demeter farmers known to the school. Looking back, that was a great privilege when I consider the food prices and cafeteria meals at my university now.

At home, too, attention was paid to nutrition, not quite as strictly as in the school kitchen, but still, chips were only allowed on occasions such as birthdays or World Cup soccer broadcasts, and otherwise we ate fairly balanced, home-cooked meals. Nevertheless, even in junior high school, I had quite a few problems with so-called healthy eating and my self-image. As a child who wasn't exactly athletic, I can't remember a time when I didn't think about my body at least once a day. I think I wanted to go on my first diet when I was about twelve—drinking only the meal replacement Almased for three days. I don't even remember if I actually went through with it.

Today, social media is flooded with thousands of tips, hauls (showing off new purchases), collaboration codes, and must-haves on the topic of nutrition. From flexitarian to carnivorous, protein-based, and gut-focused. If you want to follow all the stories at once, you'll end up buying everything, but also doing everything wrong. Some swear by zero-sugar products, others talk about the health risks of sugar substitutes, the next video features a superfood salad, followed by fermented kimchi and kefir, and others talk about all the things they haven't eaten. Above all, however, they all say the same thing: with this and only this diet, you will achieve the perfect, toned, and healthy body. It sounds tempting. What effect does this have on us—especially young girls—in today's world?

In a world full of sensory overload and crises, it is easy to feel unstable and disoriented. One of the few remaining areas over which we have almost complete control is our own body. We believe we can control it.

Just a few years ago, the body positivity trend was booming. Its goal was for us to accept our bodies as they are, not to undergo cosmetic surgery, starve ourselves, or bend ourselves out of shape in unhealthy ways to conform to conventional ideals of beauty. This trend seems to be fading into obscurity. Instead, videos of slim people are trending on social media. Hollywood stars who were known and praised for their curvy bodies are suddenly wearing several sizes smaller, song lyrics such as «Go to the gym, get skinny» (Bauch Beine Po by Shirin David) and the spread of the weight-loss injection Ozempic are contributing to skinny once again dominating. It seems to me that the goal is not a healthy balance of exercise and nutrition, but rather being very thin at any cost, no matter what it takes. Self-optimization, starting with nutrition, has reached a new level. The reasons for this can be found in today's crises. The climate crisis, wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, and anti-democratic developments in many countries around the world make it difficult to look to the future with confidence. So we focus on what we can control—ourselves.

In May, the health insurance company Kaufmännische Krankenkasse (KKH) published a study showing that eating disorders increased dramatically between 2019 and 2023. The figure rose by almost 50 percent among girls aged 12 to 17 in particular. According to the study, the risk of eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating, in which malnutrition and binge eating alternate, is greater the higher the media usage. This is no surprise, as trend videos such as skinny girl mindset, clean girl aesthetic, and that girl are viewed millions of times. Privileged, white, rich young women post about their seemingly ideal lives between Pilates and iced matcha lattes.

Once caught up in this algorithmic maze, it is difficult to maintain perspective and at the same time have a normal and, above all, healthy body image of oneself and others. The internet floods our feeds with perfect bodies. Suddenly, we find ourselves comparing ourselves to lifestyle influencers, without considering that they have personal trainers and nutrition coaches, and that they perfect their posts with the right poses, lighting, camera angles, and Photoshop. We watch their «what I eat in a day» videos – supposedly to get recipe ideas. And over time, our norm shifts. The thought «If I do everything like them, I'm sure I'll look like that soon too» creeps into our subconscious, even though no one can know if what we see is even true.

The deeper you get into the skinny bubble, the more it suddenly becomes about the role models that are being promoted. Young, conventionally beautiful, white, slim women who suddenly no longer just do sports and promote healthy eating, but want to spread an entire lifestyle. It's not far from skinnytok to tradwives and womanosphere. Tradwives have the life goal of being the perfect housewife and mother of many children – beautiful, well-behaved and all self-made, from churning butter to cooking five-course meals for their hard-working husbands, to whom they submit in everything. And, of course, being thin! Unlike tradwives, womanosphere is openly misogynistic, anti-feminist and full of right-wing content. 

This also contributes to conveying conservative role attributions and values to today's young people by showing and glorifying images of women that we know from the last century. So we have an environment full of crises around us, videos that constantly contradict each other on the subject of food, videos that tell you it's better not to eat anything at all («You want a treat? Are you a dog or something?») and images of women that seek to reinforce patriarchy. How can anyone ever develop a healthy relationship with their own body and diet? For me, comparing myself to others didn't start with the flood of nutrition videos on social media, but back in my school days. My best friends were usually a little slimmer, even though none of them did much exercise or ate a special diet. I was never overweight, but I remember often feeling uncomfortable as a child.

Exercise and calories 

When I was about 14, I started exercising and did workouts at home using workout videos. In gym class, however, I was still one of those who was chosen late for the teams. That varied from time to time, as did my balanced diet. During the coronavirus pandemic, I had real success for the first time and developed an exercise routine and ate healthily. That meant more vegetables and whole grains, although I didn't have protein shakes or zero-calorie products yet.

When I moved out of my parents' house, I had to start taking care of my own shopping. There were times when I weighed my food to track my daily calorie intake. That's not a problem in itself, as long as you make sure you're getting enough and don't secretly rejoice when the numbers keep going down. I started looking at the ingredients in my purchases more and more often, and now I can tell you how much protein and calories are in a carrot—great. I also know how much protein my body needs, what sugar substitutes do to my body, and what I should eat to have healthy gut flora. The question is whether all this was helpful, or whether I know all this because I was so interested in it or because the algorithm and the supposedly ideal body images made me do so. In any case, most of my friends can't come up with such figures off the top of their heads.

TikTok is an incredible tool for researching low-calorie recipes or protein-rich dinners. There are thousands upon thousands of videos and recipes, each one healthier than the last—at least according to their creators. Now you can also feed ChatGPT all kinds of data about your body and it will create a personalized training and nutrition plan. When I was really interested in trends, I would at least search the internet for more reputable sources, and now I can tell which nuts are really healthy and which aren't—which is also great.

It's best not to think about it 

Today, there are endless potential triggers for distorted body images and eating habits. Of course, there are also videos and sources promoting truly healthy eating habits and positive self-images, but they don't get as many views as the others—that's populism for you. If you want to prevent eating disorders in young people, you have to start early. Among other things, healthy role models are needed. From early childhood, I have heard my grandmother say things like, «No dinner for you tonight», or «Oh, that's one calorie after another», after eating cake. Such statements and comments about bodies, even positive ones, have more influence on self-image than one might think. As a teenager, you shouldn't think, «I'll skip dinner because I already ate too much at lunch», or wonder what your uncle, grandmother, or anyone else thinks of your body. The same goes for the pressure to finish everything on your plate as a child or to say that you can't eat anything after a certain time in the evening. This can alter the healthy balance between hunger and satiety.

The best balance would be one that you don't have to think about. At least to the extent that you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're satiated—coupled with a balanced, varied diet. Experts call this intuitive eating. Stick to a fitness regimen for too long, and suddenly your feed is full of pictures and videos of good and bad snacks. Haribo versus a plate full of fruit, «what I ate today» and «my morning routine to be that girl». I can only speak from my own experience and say that as a young woman, but especially as a young girl, the options for comparison and the resulting desire to change your own body are constant companions.

With a lot of gentleness towards yourself, acquiring nutritional knowledge, talking about body image, and more acceptance, you can counteract the flood of abs and protein shakes. Self-love and acceptance are best started in childhood, but not the «you have to finish everything on your plate» theory. I don't want to demonize nutrition trends and videos, but you have to learn to be less influenced by them. You have to learn to listen to yourself and accept yourself.