Infuse Issue 7 March 2019

1 So with these valuable insights from Marci and Regan’s presentation, here are five top tips for dietitians sharing on social media. 1. What’s your intention for sharing? This is a great question to ask before sharing either a photo of yourself or a foodie photo. Keeping our own privileges in check and assessing what we want the post to achieve, will help minimize potential negative mental health effects for our community members. And it might even inspire you to come up with non-foodie ideas! 2 2. Does it reflect your real life? Ensure the images you post reflect what you normally eat, or similarly are the kinds of foods or meals you’re encouraging your clients to eat. An occasional expensive meal or highly stylized food image might be okay, but let’s keep it real – we don’t eat like this every day, so be mindful of the perceptions it could be sending if you post these lavish pictures frequently. 3. Does the size of the meal in the photo match the recipe? Whilst I’m a huge advocate for eating according to our hunger and fullness cues, it’s misleading to show a portion size dished up that is vastly different to an estimated serve size in the recipe. Our clients need to juggle their food budget and appetites. If we get it wrong, they or their family can go hungry just by wrong assumptions from a photo. 4. Does the meal look easy to cook and tasty? There are lots of tips and courses available to help you take better pictures. For example using natural lighting, clean surfaces and avoiding over- cropping photos (this one’s a common rookie error!) can all help. However once we have the perfect image, it’s important to ensure it still looks easy and affordable or people will feel disheartened. 5. Are you ‘keeping it real’? Is there an opportunity to show an “imperfect” meal that you stuffed up or really doesn’t look appealing to eat? Sometimes these posts with a dash of humor can be the most popular. Keeping it real shows you’re human and goes a long way in creating genuine rapport with your followers. 5 LEARN MORE: @_christinaturner_ © Dietitian Connection 30 Infuse | March 2019

Infuse Issue 7 March 2019 | Page 30