Social Media Fans, Posting Food Shots Could Actually Help You Lose Weight!

It’s no secret that social media is flooded with influencers all pushing different ways to lose weight. Before and after pictures make a large part of daily viewing (of course you can’t help yourself from clicking on them) and diet tricks are saved and bookmarked (probably never to be seen again). However, this study says that posting food shots on social media could actually help you lose weight!

According to the study conducted by the University of Washington, people don’t post their smashed avocado toast just for likes. Some people also post food shots on social media in order to track food intake (who are these people) or to be held accountable by followers in meeting healthy eating or weight loss goals.

In the study, University of Washington researchers interviewed people diligent about posting what they ate daily on Instagram. The interviewees snapped pictures and shared them on Instagram using the #fooddiary or #foodjournal hashtags. Some also used the photos as a reference so they could remember to log their food later in the day. This resulted in individuals eating healthier and losing weight.

While researchers chalked a lot of the progress down to ‘a sense of accountability’ (strangers judging your food habits will do that to you) another component was that participants were able to get a clear picture (pun intended) of what they were eating every day.

The support received from other social media users is also crucial. However, in order to truly lose weight by posting food shots, one needs to be perfectly honest – and we don’t see a lot of that on the internet now, do we?