If you have been scrolling through TikTok recently you are bound to have come across 20-year-old Flo Simpson who has been on a mission to fit back into her jeans. Uploading the first of her daily food vlogs on 5^th May 2020, Flo has taken the video-sharing site by storm, amassing 567.7 K followers- a figure that increases each day. Flo uses her videos, which at time of writing have a total of 13 million likes, to document her daily food intake, which usually consists of three balanced meals and healthy snacks throughout the day. Speaking to Portsmouth’s The News, Flo explained the inspiration for her health journey, ‘my one-year relationship ended during lockdown and I had put on a lot of weight. Like a lot of people, I had probably been drinking and eating too much. I found this pair of jeans which I wore two months before my relationship ended and I wanted to get back to that place.’

Flo’s popularity on the app is likely due to her healthy approach to weight loss, a refreshing change from the countless unsustainable diets often encouraged on social media. The promotion of such diets and other weight loss related content on platforms like Instagram has assuredly been on the rise since lockdown, with many unqualified influencers promoting unhealthy habits and dangerously low-calorie intakes. TikTok is saturated with videos that glamorize eating disorders, and while some people use the platform to document their recovery, others use it to create challenges like the ‘headphone around waist’ challenge which sees users prove how slim they are by wrapping their headphones around their waist several times. Even content that appears to be of a joking nature, like many of the videos made with the Benjinx ‘So you think I’m skinny?’ sound, ultimately contribute to the damaging message that being perceived as ‘skinny’ is something that young girls should strive for.

In her interview with The News Flo stated, ‘I want to show people you can lose weight in a healthy way. Like with every platform, there are videos of people showing that they eat just carrots and hummus. It’s not only unrealistic, it’s unhealthy and damaging’. Allowing herself to enjoy family BBQs and socially distanced drinks with friends, Flo ensures her lifestyle is not overly restrictive, and on day 26 of her journey celebrated the completion of her dissertation with a cheat day. The Solent University graduate is honest with her audience, admitting in one video: ‘my diet has been a write off this week, I know it’s not been great, I’ve not been eating very well and I’ve not really done much exercise’. Still, on day 36 of her weight loss journey Flo achieved her goal and was met with thousands of comments congratulating her as she fitted into her jeans.

Since achieving her original goal Flo has reassured her audience that she will continue to post daily vlogs as she aims to fit into her jeans more comfortably, and has started a body positive YouTube channel which already has 39 K subscribers. Flo’s success has also inspired others to begin their own healthy lifestyle vlogs. While some of her audience accused these people of copying Flo, she showed support, ‘if watching my videos has inspired someone to embark on a similar journey to me then it fills me with absolute joy’, she reminded her audience, ‘we should all be supporting each other rather than tearing each other down’. Lifestyle vlogs that focus on balance, overall health and wellbeing should be seen as a welcomed change to the fad diets, detox teas and overly strenuous workouts that have dominated social media for long.

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