TW: Disordered Eating
By now most of you will have seen the Girl Dinner trend that is circulating both TikTok and Instagram Reels. Started by creator Olivia Maher, the premise is fairly simple: a collection of women sharing videos of the meals that they are eating when alone (often accompanied by a cute little song). The plates are usually a collection of ‘fun’ foods and random pieces, all with a charm of the childish ‘picky bits for tea’ that we all used to love.
The trend then went further to post random things as ‘Girl Dinner’, these ranging from male celebrities to objects that aren’t even edible. See below for some tasty headache medicine. Mmmmm.
And while I, too, initially loved this trend finding the pickles paired with babybels strangely appealing as a combination, the ideas around restrictive eating slowly started to creep in. Since when did we start comparing what is essentially a snack plate to a balanced, satisfying dinner?
Hiding behind comedy
When I first started to have doubts around this trend I told myself that I was simply overthinking something innocent. The smiles on the faces of these women, the fact that they were satisfying the needs of their inner child, the catchy song (honestly my favourite part of the whole thing). What could be wrong with this?
But as many TikTok users pointed out, the meals were all “suspiciously low cal” and concerns were raised over whether women were actually eating *just* that for their most substantial meal of the day. One post showed a woman literally eating ice and captioning it ‘girl dinner’, another showed a couple of strawberries and boiled eggs thrown on a plate.
After one fan pointed out that this resembled the dinner of a toddler I searched just that into TikTok and the suggestions that appeared actually had fuller plates than that of girl dinner trends. Let’s just say that one more time: a SNACK for a TODDLER was bigger than a DINNER for a WOMAN.
But by posting these videos of meals with no nutritional value under a trending, silly sound we disguise the severity of the situation. These women do not eat properly when alone and encourage others to do the same. Girl Dinner seems to be the younger, cooler cousin of the fad diet culture articles we were reading in the 2010s.
But it’s not that deep, right?
Hate to tell you, but it is. Suggested calorie intake changes on a person to person basis but the average guidelines are at 2000 a day for women. Unless these women are having fry ups and casseroles for breakfast and lunch, these ‘dinners’ are simply not cutting it.
The effects of undereating can be huge, both mentally and physically.
And now is a worse time than any for such thoughts to be entering young people’s minds. According to the NHS website: “Almost 10,000 children and young people started treatment between April and December with record demand for services – an increase of a quarter compared to the same period last year and up by almost two thirds since before the pandemic.” At a time of such high risk around eating and our relationship with it, even fun little trend promoting unhealthy eating habits could be detrimental.
A generation of girls without dinner
As control over the ages of those using social media platforms is in constant decline, it is terrifying to think that many of the people consuming these videos are literal girls themselves. With the influence of what we see online being so huge, as seen through the increasing number of ten-year-olds asking for White Elephant skincare for Christmas this year despite their skin being childishly perfect, it is scary to think that so many will begin to believe that what these women are eating can be constituted as ‘dinner’.
To think that these food choices are the norm as opposed to a balanced, warm meal at the end of the day is a terrible starting point. As someone who has a mostly healthy relationship with food, I sometimes end up throwing together a low calorie, snacky dinner when I’m in a rush. But that is an occasional blip. If this is deemed an acceptable starting point, then my version of a rushed dinner for them will be next to nothing at all.
eat what makes you happy
At the end of the day everyone’s diet looks different. And for some it looks like picky bits for tea. But don’t be fooled by these diet cultures in disguise; eat what makes you feel satisfied and gives you the energy for the things you love. You deserve more than a strawberry and a boiled egg, girl.
If any of the topics in this article have affected you or someone you know, help is available through the amazing charity ‘Beat’ who have a one-to-one chat feature where you can ask any questions you may have about your relationship with food.