There’s no denying that Instagram is the site to go to for food inspiration. One refresh of your feed and you are indulged with exotic and aesthetically pleasing cuisine. You cant leave the screen without a #foodcoma! But how much of this ‘eating for the gram’ takes place at university?

Takeaways and ready meals are the stereotype of student eating habits, especially with Just Eat and Uber Eats rapidly gaining more popularity. However, this is an expensive way to live! According to The Mail Online, buying twelve takeaways each month equates to a staggering £1,320 per annum. Knowing just how tight student budgets are, can this stereotype really be true or is it just a notion from the past?

Undoubtedly, we all leave our healthy eating ambitions to the side when we are overcome by the lure of a Pot Noodle or an advertisement for pizza that can be delivered straight to your door. Not even Instagram’s aesthetically pleasing food can save us when we are having a lazy day. However, all things considered, I have found that students cook more often than you may think. Whether it is the longing for home comforts, the excitement to learn a new recipe or just a way to stay healthy and away from the depths of the overdraft, students return to the kitchen to spend time preparing a balanced meal most evenings. Could Instagram be one of the main ingredients for this healthy habit in student eating? Possibly.

I must admit that Instagram’s visually pleasing pictures of food provide me with the motivation to cook something new. Particularly, the vegetarian posts catch my eye the most with their vibrant quality. It is almost certain that the expansion of social media has heightened the support for vegetarian and vegan diets due to the perception of healthy eating they convey. Natalie Morris, writing for The Metro, recently contended that ‘the aesthetic has overtaken the values of nutrition,’ which arguably has some ground. We’ve all posted a picture-perfect meal online with more interest in the amount of likes it receives rather than its nutritional value. However, if the aesthetic is making people eat better, surely this is a step in the right direction?

Undoubtably, social media has intensified the need for validation and therefore, has played a role in the healthy eating trend. Could this be causing an ‘addictive message online?’ Natalie Morris reports that this is so. It is possible that our fascination and fixation with the look of our food could be provoking eating disorders; on the contrary, it may be promoting better diets. It is a complicated debate. Nowadays, if you are going to post a picture of your food, it has got to be #foodporn! Although you may not want to confess it, we all want to be perceived as fit rather than lazy online. Although there are over 200 million Instagram posts under #foodporn, you would struggle to find many of glorified Pot Noodles! Does this show that we care about how we eat more than ever before

Next time you are scrolling endlessly on Instagram, see whether you are caught into the trap of #foodporn. Will the inspiration make you produce healthier meals?