“What I Eat In A Day” content seems to be super popular. You just need to type it into YouTube and my feed is flooded with stacks and stacks of videos of people sharing their “what I eat in a day” type content. I was going to type “sharing what they eat in a day” but I would imagine, with the best will in the world the answer to that would always be it depends and even if all the videos are an accurate reflection of consumption then it’s only what people ate THAT day. They may profess to that being a typical day and we can all have a ball park of what typical looks like for us.
The content IS popular.
There’s what I eat in a day type content that provides insight into all sorts of eating/nutritional protocols. My feed includes endurance athletes, strength athletes, meat lovers, vegans, weight loss, a Victoria Secrets model, living along, trying other people’s “diets,” high calorie, low calorie, for making weight, for teenager girls, for a snatched waist, for clearer skin ooooooo I could go on and on and that’s only my first page of results on YouTube.
So, Is This Type Of Content Useful?
Well we will get on to a little chart about my feelings on that in a hot minute but in the meantime let’s look at what we’ve just written above. There’s videos that are for all sorts of niches/genres. These’s videos are all put together by people with different outcomes and objectives that they want their nutrition to support. Even for the videos that hit a similar genre there’s always differences. That’s before we get on to the difference of people.
People, whilst at the core they are the same, are totally different. You can be stood, side by side, with someone who is the same height & weight as you and their nutritional needs can vary immensely.
What are these differences?
- Body composition ~ the percentage of lean body mass, muscle, body fat makes a difference in the nutrition the body needs to run & carry out all it’s vital functions.
- Activity amount ~ we are not only talking about exercise here. It depends on how much your body moves on a day to day basis for the fuel it requires to support that movement.
- Goals & objectives ~ you might want to lose weight, gain muscle, fuel endurance activities, gain weight, support the growth of a baby, breast feed, feel well ~ whatever the goal of your nutrition feeling well should be the primary focus.
- Access ~ there’s a whole stack of socio & ecomonic factor that play into our nutritional intakes
- Upbringing ~ the foods that work with your body & your body has been working with over a long period of time.
So, what are the pros & cons to this type of content?
Pros
+ It’s always good to have an open mind & to see what the alternatives out there are
+ It can give you some meal ideas that you can use in your life (there’s nothing worse than constantly having to decide what’s for dinner 😱, ok, so there’s stacks of worse things but it’s a pain in the ass).
You can have a wee nosey at what someone you follow eats!
Cons
+ It’s not specific for you.
+ You may fall into comparison that’s harmful & unnecessary
+ It can often times be BAD nutritional advice (at best)
+ It’s often not in context
+ You are NOT them
It may lead to negativity around how you fuel yourself right now.
Here’s the thing, as a creator, as long as you are putting your content out there with good intention, you are considering your audience and you are acting ethically & authentically then you can produce any type of content you want. You cannot always be responsible for the consumption that content and how people interpret it. ALTHOUGH, when it comes to this type of content I do feel that there’s an awful lot more we need to be mindful of.
Personally, I believe that we need to be careful around this type of content as there’s lots of eyes on that content (in view of it’s popularity) and these eyes can often be young & impressionable people, people who have a disordered relationship with food & nutrition and those who are feeling quite lost when it comes to food & eating. It’s a BIG subject and it can have a huge impact. People can produce their own dialogue from what’s been said, i.e. make it mean stuff it didn’t.
There’s also some times it’s produced without the knowledge of the impact that it can make.
For example, I’ve seen a video where someone talked about having a gluten intolerance but their food does include things that contain gluten, one of the most annoying things for people with coeliac and other gluten intolerances and issues is that they are often told “ah, but surely you can just have a bit.” Whilst it might be dandy for one person to decide to suck up the consequences of occasionally eating gluten it does nothing to help the education & progression of society for those who it’s incredibly harmful or painful for.
Another example, a “making weight” video will be an incredibly short term protocol for an athlete to make a specific weight for an event (for example boxers who need to weigh in for their category prior to a fight). This is a short term weight reduction technique. It’s often NOT NICE and certainly not something they follow day to day. A young boxer or someone looking to lose weight may watch this and see it as a long term solution to their nutrition.
Another example, an endurance athlete may train 7 hours a week or 30 hours a week ~ there’s a difference in what the body is going to need to power this kinda training. Endurance isn’t endurance isn’t endurance.
The annoying reality, like with most things in life, is IT DEPENDS!
What I eat in a day content can be responsibly made and if you consume it in a good place then you can absolutely get benefits from it. It can also be irresponsibly made & harmful.
So, back to the original question, is what I eat in a day type content useful? The answer is “it depends” but for me there’s more potential harm than there are positives.
Do you want this type of content?
Do you like it?
What are your thoughts? I’d love to know…
