Introduction
Nutrition and healthy eating habits are an ongoing conversation throughout society today, especially on all social media platforms. Recipes are being posted everywhere and are shared faster than ever with just the click of a button. No longer do people need to find a blog for an amazing recipe, when they can just go to their “For You Page” on TikTok. This rapid growth of connection has led to the explosion of food trends, recipes and mindsets about nutrition, giving almost anyone the ability to become a food influencer. This growth in the nutrition landscape has many positive effects and can lead others to learn new insights on nutrition, preparing them for success later in life, especially for young athletes. Young athletes can benefit from following some of these influencers, especially those who were collegiate athletes or who deal with athletes as dieticians. The following trends were noticed over a period of time through multiple social media platforms, specifically TikTok and Instagram, and can be boiled down to three big trends in 2025.
The Normalization of Posting WIEIAD
One of the most popular social media videos online is those that take the viewer along with the author throughout their day. “What I Eat In a Day” videos are the most watched in the nutrition category online. These videos can contain everything from the exact time and macronutrients that the author consumed, or just show fun pictures of the food. These videos are popular because of how intriguing they are. Everyone wants to know what other people eat, and especially if that person is in good shape, it makes the pull to their habits even bigger. Nick Fox, a current collegiate basketball player at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, shared his full day of eating as a collegiate athlete while prioritizing protein and health. His food throughout the day consisted of multiple different carbs, fruit, vegetables and different types of protein. This video by Fox is just one of many that can be found online, with many having similar recipes and ideals surrounding nutrition. For a young athlete, paying attention to what other successful athletes are eating is a good way to help oneself succeed on the nutrition side of the game. Another simple and easy way to expand your knowledge is to find other nutrition-packed recipes online.
Home-cooked Recipes
Home-cooked recipes have to be the easiest type of nutritional content that anyone can find online. The original forms of this come through recipes found on blogs through a simple search on the internet, but now it has evolved to entire TikTok and Instagram videos with step-by-step instructions to make healthy, high-protein meals for anyone to enjoy. A popular family account on Instagram called @seattlehanddoc constantly uploads videos of recipes that a mother and father make for their high-school athletes at home. The videos always contain a sped-up version of them making the recipe, along with the ingredients and instructions provided in the caption of the video on Instagram. Following recipes like this is simple, and the difficulty of them varies throughout the web. Having videos of home-cooked recipes online is an advantage to those wanting to know more about nutrition these days because of the access it gives them. Those who decide to cook them have the ability to watch the video, analyze how the food looks and the process that it takes to cook it, and then they can use it to grade their own attempts. These videos can also vary from long recipes, but also to quick ones like @stealth_health_life on TikTok, which provides easy meal-prep ideas for those on the go. His video of sheet pan cheesy chicken fajita burritos outlines a recipe that can provide up to 12 burritos, either for on the go at work, practice or to enjoy at home. All of these recipes are available at anyone’s fingertips online. It’s almost impossible not to find inspiration anymore when it comes to cooking, and for athletes, the options are endless. In addition to social media food influencers, dietitian and nutritionist pages are just as popular online, providing tips for athletes of all levels to up their nutrition game.
Athlete Nutrition Tips
Many nutrition experts and dieticians are just as active on social media as food influencers are. There are a multitude of ideals that are shared by these experts, however. Some ideas can be misconstrued by athletes, and could possibly lead to eating disorders or a fear of eating because of the constant changing of diet culture in society. Young athletes are the most impressionable, so it is just as important for them to see the right things at a young age. That’s why the post by Kyndall Weir, a registered dietician and sports dietician for female athletes, is on the right track. It outlines an example of what an athlete should be consuming during a full day of fall training camp, a time when the level of training is increased for many athletes. Nutrition during this time is extremely important because it helps lay the foundation of what an athlete’s body will rely on during competition. If young athletes continue to build their knowledge about nutrition with templates like this, it can help give them an advantage over their competitors and prepare them for later in life.
Conclusion
The nutrition space online is vast, and there’s so much that can distract a young athlete, or anyone else, for that matter. Making sure that one is in the right spaces and trends is a great first step to grow one’s knowledge of nutrition. Due to the availability of so much content online, there is the possibility of focusing too much on diet culture or trends with food. However, there are plenty of resources for people to rely on to get back on track. The nutrition world is far and wide, and connects people from every side of the world. Food has a way of connecting others through shared experiences and memories, so educating oneself on this topic can open a door to endless possibilities.