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Culture

The Images That Make Us: Our Eating Habits Are Shaped By What We See

In our newest column The Images That Make Us, writer, founder and CEO of MTArt Agency, Marine Tanguy, selects a painting, sculpture, or photograph, and responds to its creative and cultural moment and importance in how it shapes us as individuals. Next up, our eating habits and celebrity culture.

Instagram started with many of us posting what we ate or pretty table arrangements we came across or, for the most creative of us, designed ourselves. Suddenly what we ate mattered socially, what we ate became a visual currency. Fast forward to 2025, and according to research lead by Food Navigator USA, 69% of millennials had posted a photo of their food online during the year preceding the study, while 92% of Gen Z consumed food content on TikTok.

A survey by OnePoll on behalf of California Figs, called Food worth of social media, found that 40% of 2,000 respondents share photos of food they never eat; while six in 10 (59%) have stopped their friends from starting to eat just so they can take a picture of the food first. Videos with the hashtag #TikTokFood have collectively amassed 42.4 billion views, and the app regularly spawns viral food crazes, such as whipped coffee, and a pasta dish with baked feta and tomatoes now known as the ‘TikTok pasta’.

As of 2024, revenue in the food market amounted to US$9.68tn, with 32 billion spent annually on visual advertising. It exceeded the cost of the production of the food alone in many food sectors and is now lead by TikTok influencers. It’s the app’s algorithm that makes it easier than ever to become an overnight food sensation. On TikTok, the primary way users consume videos is through the ‘For You’ page, an algorithmically programmed feed of content delivered to users based on what they’ve watched or engaged with in the past.

Once a user begins viewing and engaging with content, there’s a snowball effect in which that user is served more and more of that type of content. If the algorithm picks up that you like Mexican food, for instance, it will show you more cooking videos in that realm.

One study estimated that children and adolescents see marketing for food between 30 and 189 times per week on social media apps, with fast food and sugary drinks being the most common. How much of this visual advertising is influencing our day to day food choices? “There is some evidence that, if you see pictures of food, that visual stimulation can prompt you to feel a desire to eat,” says Suzanne Higgs, professor in the psychobiology of appetite at the University of Birmingham, UK. Research has also found that the closer and stronger two people’s connection, the more sway they have over each other’s food choices. Social media is therefore the place where visual and social cues meet: if friends in your social network post regularly about particular types of food, it would lead you to copy them, for better or for worse.

And celebrities too have joined the visual food industry, like actress and singer Selena Gomez, whose cooking show came out in 2020. Or Brooklyn Beckham, model and son of former soccer player David Beckham and singer Victoria Beckham, who launched a social-media series, Cookin’ With Brooklyn, in 2021. Not to forget Meghan Markle whose return on Instagram on 1 January 2025 has been to launch her very own cooking show on Netflix.

It’s time for a quick personal audit of what food you look at daily and how much you end up eating it… Meghan Markle’s highlight of her show seems to be a Victoria Sponge; might this be the visual food trend of 2025?


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