As a blogger, Emilie Nereng (26) felt the pressure to look a certain way, and the relationship with food was not top notch. That was when she decided to study nutrition, and rather focus on the interior.
–
The annual UNG2022 report to Opinion shows that 25 percent of young people aged 15 to 25 think food has become too complicated.
Also for Emilie “Voe” Nereng (26), food was complicated, especially in her youth when she was a blogger. Now she is older and more confident, but she can still feel pressure.
– I can still feel pressure around food in fact, because I am a food instagrammer and come across extremely many different diets, diet patterns, meals and ways of eating, says the blogger who is in this season’s edition of “Kompani Lauritzen”.
–On Instagram, the influencer has over 160,000 followers. In 2021, she was named food influencer of the year and has also written a cookbook.
– It takes up so much of my everyday life. Then I can also feel a certain pressure that I should be she «healthy», because my name is EmilieNutrition on Instagram. I have had to work a bit to detach myself from that. I’m just Emilie who is going to eat food like everyone else, she says.
Took a break to study
When Emilie started blogging in 2009, the focus was on other things. She cared most about the exterior and not the interior.
– I gradually felt that it went against my values, because I had other things in my life that I felt were more important to me. I also felt an enormous pressure at the time to look a certain way, but really knew nothing about the body, says the influencer.
–That’s when she decided to stop blogging and take a break from social media. Instead, she began studying nutrition.
– That was where I really learned how important it is to focus on the inner rather than the outer, and what function food has inside the body. Rather than constantly focusing on losing weight and the external factors.
Do you think food has become too complicated?
—
– It helps to follow
She believes that young people today have a harder time than she did when she was young.
– It’s hard to know what you yourself feel and think about anything when you are bombarded with so much different information. I think a lot also stems from the fact that there is so much focus on appearance. I did not have TikTok when I was young, she says.
At TikTok you can get different types of videos, it is also one of the most popular apps for young people.
– You can say as much as you want about the focus on humor and such, but you see that many of the biggest influencers are very thin and muscular. It creates a certain pressure when they start to show what they eat, and that you have to do it to look like that, and to get that status, says Nereng.
She herself shares content about food on Instagram.
– I understand very well that it has become very complicated for many, and I think we need to get a bigger relationship to where our food comes from and pull it down a bit, she adds.
Even one of the solutions for her has been to stop following people on social media that make her feel bad.
– It helps to follow people on Instagram who make you feel bad. Those who have an excessive focus on appearance, abdominal muscles, “abs” and all that. It has helped me. Not least, it has helped me to read about nutrition. Textbooks simply, says Nereng.
–VG has talked to psychologist Emil Vidu Mogård about why many people find food difficult.
– Food has become entertainment, and many people think a lot about what we eat. Since we have to deal with food several times during a day, it is no wonder someone thinks food has become too complicated, says Mogård.
Mogård says that the food we eat affects focus, sleep, mood and memory.
– Even though it is a small part of the body, the brain actually uses 20 percent of the body’s energy.
Mogård has some advice for you who find food complicated.
