The Winter Arc: Are Social Media Trends Fuelling the Resurgence of Diet Culture?

Sophie Gregory on 17 March 2025

The rhetoric surrounding the perfect ‘summer body’ resurfaces annually to perpetuate diet culture and provide a platform for corporations to profit from individuals’ insecurities or anxieties. In an era of digitalisation, social media platforms form the network through which these negative ideals become targeted towards women, especially young women. 

The latest trend to appear on TikTok is “The Winter Arc”, which is a creative reimagining of the ‘summer body’ phrasing to ensure that year-long young women become pressured to conform to diet culture and subscribe to various health and wellness fixes. In a 2020 survey published by University College London, it was reported that between 2005 and 2015 the percentage of teenagers attempting to lose weight had risen by 13.4%. The societal pressure to lose weight is often directed towards young women, and in turn, companies create products, fitness programmes and marketing campaigns with this demographic in mind.  

Within this context, “The Winter Arc” is problematic because it creates a culture of consumption whereby individuals feel pressured to buy expensive gym memberships, new gym clothes, trainers, skincare products and expensive health food. The TikTok algorithm promotes these trends because engagement draws interest from large health, wellness and beauty advertisers that stand to profit from diet culture. It is opportunistic but also represents the larger problem of beauty standards in society. 

To say “The Winter Arc” is a resurgence of diet culture is unfortunately untrue, as diet culture is consistently present in modern society. In reality, TikTok is creating trends that are increasingly visible and less discreet than previous reimaginings of weight loss trends, and these terms are repackaged and reestablished regularly by corporations aiming for profit. Trends like #WhatIEatInADay have been circulating social media for years, whilst the app Facetune, which allows users to edit their images, has over 160 million downloads globally. Trends like “The Winter Arc” are indicative of a widespread problem in society. 

Though diet culture is persistent, in an increasingly digitalised world trends and narratives are readily available on mainstream and social media platforms. With increasing media visibility, and in an era of Ozempic and plastic surgery, these problems can seem new or part of a resurgence in diet culture. But the truth is that we are increasingly exposed to diet culture which results in increased conversation around body image in our communities. Across news media reporting, in tabloids and broadsheets, there is an excessive focus on celebrities’ appearance or sudden weight loss. The editorial director at British Vogue stated that the fashion industry should be worried about the return of extreme thinness on both the runway and the media. It could be argued that though there has been increasing diversity in body types in modelling and mainstream media in recent years, the underlying persistence of diet culture and pressures to be thin has not improved or changed greatly. 

Image Credit: The Guardian/Alamy/Ro

The presence of social media trends, such as “The Winter Arc” and #WhatIEatInADay, paired with the increasing thinness in the media due to Ozempic, generates extreme pressure on women to adhere to ever-changing beauty standards because they are targeted by the media and marketing campaigns. Social media platforms, centrally TikTok, have a responsibility to monitor the trends that circulate the app. On TikTok, when the #WhatIEatInADay trend appears, there is a disclaimer and a link to the charity Beat which helps people with eating disorders. 

Though these trends are problematic, and social media platforms have a responsibility to protect people struggling with body image issues, these trends emerge from the social systems that put pressure on women to look a certain way. By acknowledging that these trends are repackaged and relabelled in attempts to generate insecurities and sell products, it becomes easier to examine the source of these social pressures. But, to create real change, we must unsubscribe from the beauty ideals imposed by societal pressure, as corporations would be forced to create marketing campaigns and products that are not based on diet culture.

Words by Sophie Gregory

Unlearning Diet Culture: Healthy Relationships with Food in an All-Girls Household

Anna Lawrence-Wasserberg on 16 March 2025

It is no secret to those who know me, that my absolute favourite genre of film and TV show is 2000s chick flicks. They are the most fun and light-hearted comfort re-watch, with cute outfits, snappy comebacks and (almost) always a happy ending. When it comes to a girly movie night, Tarantino can do one. 

Image Credit: HBO

However, every piece of media in this genre has one thing in common. They always, without fail, reinforce diet culture. Think Regina’s perpetual diet in Mean Girls, Andy being shamed for eating carbs in The Devil Wears Prada, Hannah’s weight loss storyline in Pretty Little Liars, Bridget Jones’s record of her weight in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Even Sex and the City, for all of its empowering, 20-years-ahead-of-its-time observations, falls back into the conversation of losing weight over and over again. 

One might argue that these scenes are intentionally over-the-top and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. However, considering the influence of the media we consume on our real-life culture, the impacts shouldn’t be minimised. Not only is an unhealthy relationship with food expected in women and girls, but, to a degree, it is celebrated. Even further than that, it serves as something that women bond over. Granted, some of the dialogue about diet is satirical, and is making fun of this collective over-obsession, but that still doesn’t negate its place in reinforcing these expectations for women. 

Essentially, women have been socialised, by the media marketed specifically to them, to believe that uniting over wanting to change our bodies is inherent to our female relationships. 

Instead of diving into how irritating I find this, for I fear we could be all day, I want to take the trope in a more positive direction. Every girl and woman I know has struggled with their body image for at least some of their life, usually most of it (bear with me). It’s ingrained into our culture that we should always be striving to change something about our appearance and, more often than not, the conversation comes back to food.

As a second-year student, when I moved into a house of seven girls, the thought of how other people’s relationship with food and their bodies would affect my own certainly crossed my mind, because when you live with people, these things tend to surface. It’s no secret that house-sharing is an intense feat, and the longer you spend together, the more aware of each other’s habits you are. So, imagine my delight when I discovered that living with only girls would be the best my relationship with food and my body had ever been.

As a side note, I think the phrase “relationship with food/my body” has been heavily stigmatised, and when I talk about my own, it is not to imply that it has ever been awful, but, like many other girls, it has always been a conscious part of my day-to-day life. 

Image Credit: iStock

When we first started living together, the seven of us would regularly cook almost comically different meals on a nightly basis. However, as time has gone on, we have inspired each other’s meals, cooking the same thing more often, and eventually cooking all together when we can. Sharing meal ideas has become an act of love for us, wanting our friends to indulge in what we enjoy, so they can garner the same enjoyment. We also subconsciously time our dinners to ensure we are all cooking/eating around the same time, so we can chat and catch up on our days. Food has brought us together daily, and not in the way the movies wanted it to. Even working out, which our culture has a tendency to pervert into self-flagellation with Gymshark leggings on, has become some of our most quality time together, the endorphins muddling themselves with hysterical laughing fits.

Then there is, of course, the sweet treat. The foods that have been demonised our whole lives are the ones that bring us together the most. A giggly night time trip to Sainsbury’s, a cheeky movie snack while we squash on the sofa together – keto hasn’t stepped within 10 feet of our house. These are the foods labelled as “evil” by the protagonists of our favourite films, again often satirically, but never without basis for how they’re generally spoken of. But food that is fun and sweet and you enjoy it together, when everything’s in moderation, why not? 

To coin my previous phrase again, I don’t think anyone’s relationship with food or their body can ever be perfect – diet culture is too embedded in everything we do. However, that shouldn’t stop us from using our lifestyles to disregard all the nonsense we have been taught and instead turn something that has been polarising into a space for community. Food is at the heart of so many cultures, so let’s try and carry on the tradition of it bringing people together, rather than using it to tear ourselves apart.

Words by Anna Lawrence-Wasserberg