Twitter Diet

Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have intensified the amount of time people spend thinking about exactly what they’re eating. I remember when I was in high school; the only time food was discussed was when you were enrolled in Home Ec. Class. In today’s society everyone and their brother wants the world to know exactly what and when their eating. Not only do they think the food item they’re eating is important, but they also think their workouts and protein shakes are a thing of interest for the rest of the world. It seems like society and the media went from saying, “Super-Size Me” to “#EatClean” in just a few years.

In the past year, a common trend for most twitter users is to post pictures of their health habits. In the article, “Tall Tales, Truth and my Twitter Diet” by Brian Stelter, he discusses how he used Twitter as an inspiration to lose weight.  By recording all of his meals, he was able to seek encouragement from the Twitter World. At the end of the text, he talks about how he is actually going to buy a scale that Tweets his weight every time he steps on the scale. This way, people will be able to follow his progress, or possible regress, throughout the process. However, my question is why has the media decided to make health popular?

It seems that most of my life, media has supported large portions, super sizing, and the more hamburger patties the better. Processed food was the cool thing to eat and the more calories the better. In the past few years health has become a leader in popularity. In all honesty, to me it seems as though some “cool” person decided to fatten everyone up, and then suddenly make everyone realize how fat they were and have them get healthy. People spent money getting fat, and now they are spending money getting skinny. It just seems like a vicious cycle to me.