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Wagamaga OP t1_iunu9u2 wrote

New research from the University of Vermont finds the most viewed content on TikTok relating to food, nutrition and weight perpetuates a toxic diet culture among teens and young adults and that expert voices are largely missing from the conversation.

Published today in PLOS One, the study found weight-normative messaging, the idea that weight is the most important measure of a person’s health, largely predominates on TikTok with the most popular videos glorifying weight loss and positioning food as a means to achieve health and thinness. The findings are particularly concerning given existing research indicating social media usage in adolescents and young adults is associated with disordered eating and negative body image.

“Each day, millions of teens and young adults are being fed content on TikTok that paints a very unrealistic and inaccurate picture of food, nutrition and health,” said senior researcher Lizzy Pope, associate professor and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at UVM. “Getting stuck in weight loss TikTok can be a really tough environment, especially for the main users of the platform, which are young people."

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267997

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kittenTakeover t1_iunycsl wrote

Replying to Wagamaga (#419,802)

>Published today in PLOS One, the study found weight-normative messaging, the idea that weight is the most important measure of a person’s health

I guess it really depends what you mean by "most important", but I think an argument could definitely be made that weight is the most important health measure. Compared to the difficulty of taking the measurement, weight has a high level of predictive value on most measures of health. Can you get a better picture with more effort? Sure. Is there a more predictive measure that can be generally applied for the average person? I'm not sure. Also note that saying weight is predictive of health is not the same as saying minimizing weight is predictive of health.

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Techygal9 t1_iuot4r5 wrote

This study comes from an opinion based idea of health: > Over the past few years, the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at UVM has shifted away from a weight-normative mindset, adopting a weight-inclusive approach to teaching dietetics. The approach centers on using non-weight markers of health and wellbeing to evaluate a person’s health and rejects the idea that there is a “normal” weight that is achievable or realistic for everyone. If society continues to perpetuate weight normativity, says Pope, we’re perpetuating fat bias.

In other words they have a problem with the fact that people on TikTok advocate weight loss for health…. And they deny how large a factor that is in determining physical health.

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anotherdumbcaucasian t1_iup2oyu wrote

>Over the past few years, the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at UVM has shifted away from a weight-normative mindset, adopting a weight-inclusive approach to teaching dietetics.

So this article was written by people who think a 50 BMI is perfectly healthy, normal, and that a 50 BMI person shouldn't be medically or socially encouraged to lose any weight whatsoever?

>the most popular videos glorifying weight loss and positioning food as a means to achieve health and thinness

Are they trying to say that having a healthy diet and eating at a caloric deficit to lose weight isn't healthy or the only way to lose weight that's supported by evidence? I'm not saying the fad diets a lot of these vids are likely pushing are good, but to suggest that health can't be improved through improving your diet or losing weight is ridiculous. Whoever wrote this article must be very flexible with all this stretching.

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Rainstorme t1_iupiqnh wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#421,536)

> rejects the idea that there is a “normal” weight that is achievable or realistic for everyone.

This is already included in the CDC definition of a healthy weight too. There's a BMI range for healthy, which at average height (5'9") encompasses 44 pounds. That seems like plenty of wiggle room to account for realistic weights for the vast majority of people at a height.

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morebass t1_iupxros wrote

Replying to anotherdumbcaucasian (#422,098)

> So this article was written by people who think a 50 BMI is perfectly healthy, normal, and that a 50 BMI person shouldn't be medically or socially encouraged to lose any weight whatsoever?

Is it? Can you define weight-inclusive and the weight-normative approachs to patient health as well as their outcomes with regards to weight, physical, and mental health?

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Altruistic-Goose5114 t1_iuq3po6 wrote

Replying to anotherdumbcaucasian (#422,098)

I'm going to give the researchers the benefit of the doubt and assume that by "shifted away from a weight-normative mindset, adopting a weight-inclusive approach to teaching dietetics" they mean that diets should be specifically tailored according to the individual. A 25 year old athletic man who's 6'8" will require a vastly different diet from a 5'1" 60 year old woman even if they're both the same BMI. Many of these videos push a one-size-fits-all approach which won't work for everyone.

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bazoo513 t1_iurt976 wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#421,536)

Quite to the contrary, this is a fact based approach. Instead of using something as meaningless as BMI, one should assess parameters such as performance of cardiovascular, respiratory and locomotive system. In other words, put the subject on a treadmill and see is that "excess" weight detrimental or not.

Of course, anorexic or morbidly obese people can be recognized at sight, but beyond that, "normal" is not so simple.

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Techygal9 t1_iurvxl6 wrote

Replying to bazoo513 (#427,541)

I don’t know where people got this notion that bmi doesn’t work or is completely wrong. From some research I had to replicate it’s about 87% (using ARC) accurate on its own to predict metabolic disorders, likelihood of hospitalization, and premature death. But that accuracy goes up when you add measures like waist circumference for women and neck circumference for men.

There are different bmi measures that should be used for different racial groups or sex, but those bmi scales are LOWER not higher.

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RhaenyrasUncle t1_ius6xu9 wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#421,536)

Which is why it is important that we carefully analyze the legitimacy of any call for "experts".

Unfortunately, facts are subjective in today's world. Objective truths are often considered "misinformation" by "experts" with an agenda.

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bazoo513 t1_iusod40 wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#427,683)

So, a marathon runner, waterpilo player and shot petter should all strive toward the same BMI? Good to know. Or are the latter two bound to live shorter?

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Techygal9 t1_iussqeu wrote

Replying to bazoo513 (#429,336)

I think you’re being purposely obtuse about this. But bmi norms have ranges that can be 20 to 50lbs depending on your height. For athletes they may fall into the overweight category because of dense muscles. But their doctor would use bmi in conjunction with circumference of the neck/waist or body fat tests. That’s where the other 13% accuracy comes from.

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bazoo513 t1_iusw64e wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#429,568)

Oh, 100% combined predictive accuracy? I see Nobel somewhere here

Don't be ridiculous. Then again, having worked with physicians and being acquaintances with their typical skills in experiment design, statistics and data reduction, I am not surprised.

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espiritly t1_iut0vxx wrote

Replying to Techygal9 (#421,536)

Except that research is showing that it's not actually as big of a factor as society tends to believe. Far from it. And, just like research had recently been realizing how skewed a lot of research has been because of racism and sexism, the same is true for fatphobia. But also, are people really advocating weight loss for health or to fit conventional standards of beauty? Like, if society as a whole wasn't so fatphobic, people would have much better attitudes towards food and their health in general. And, having a healthy mindset and approach to ones wellbeing is an incredibly important part of being able to effectively take care of yourself.

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