Last week we covered the TikTok trend called “girl dinner” which is essentially just a new label for the concept of a charcuterie/snack plate for dinner. I loved reading everyone’s comments about what their version of a charcuterie plate looks like. Now that it’s high summer, I’ll do anything to avoid turning on the oven or the range, so this concept seemed like a fun way to eat dinner that doesn’t take too much effort. But the “girl dinner” trend has come under fire for possibly promoting disordered eating because many of the people posting about it are showing small portion sizes (some of those TikToks are satires but others are not). The originator of the trend, TikTok user Olivia Maher, was interviewed by Yahoo about how people are responding to this trend. Yahoo also talked to a registered dietitian about the backlash to the trend.
The “girl dinner” is suddenly everywhere – and its creator is worrying that its original meaning has been misconstrued.
The meal trend — which is essentially a single-serving dinner made up of little bits of different foods like cheese, bread and an assortment of meat, vegetables, fruits or whatever a person might be craving — originated on TikTok in a video by Olivia Maher posted on May 11. Now, the 28-year-old’s original video has 1.3 million views, while inspiring countless recreations under the hashtag #girldinner and even a musical jingle by another creator that’s been used in over 23,000 TikTok videos.
While her original video characterizing her spread of cheeses, bread, grapes and cornichons “girl dinner” was all in good fun, Maher has seen how the trend has gotten carried away by those who are enjoying it and others who are critiquing it as a bridge to dangerous eating habits.
“I totally hear where people are coming from,” she says. But she stands by her creation as one that comes from a love of food, not a way to glamorize restriction.
Instead, she says, “girl dinner” is about “a celebration of food and appreciation and excitement because you’re eating exactly what you want and you’re satisfying all the flavors you’re craving,” she says.
While a “girl dinner” might be convenient for a solo diner, Maher says it’s also something that people can be “excited” about eating — particularly because it rids the person of any expectations to put together something more elaborate and instead just eat what they need and want to.
Brenna O’Malley, a registered dietitian and founder of The Wellful, agrees that that’s part of meal’s appeal. “It’s almost like a pseudo pushing against the idea that you need to have your meal look a certain way,” she tells Yahoo Life. “It can be a way to have different tastes and textures on a plate, which can be really nice. You have something crunchy, something sweet, something savory, whatever it is.”
The main concern when putting a girl dinner together would be considering whether the serving size is enough food, which O’Malley says is a criticism she’s seen on TikTok. “Some people are feeling like this is actually looking like not enough food,” she says, “or that you’re trying to glorify that you’re not having very much food.”
“It can be a bit worrying in that, are we saying this is a girl dinner because all of these messages that we have about women needing to watch what they eat and be super, super particular, and maybe really controlled and portioned around what they’re eating? Is this a way to be more permissive around certain foods? Or is it another way to be super hypervigilant of what you’re eating and have really small amounts of things?” O’Malley points out.
I think short-form video suffers from context collapse similar to what happens on Twitter and that’s why so many TikTok trends end up becoming controversial in some way. But calling something “girl dinner” also makes the trend gendered, and brings up the tangled web around women, food, bodies, and eating. And as I’ve said before, TikTok is full of content that implicitly or explicitly promotes disordered eating. I get why people have concerns about this trend. But what is valuable about the ‘girl dinner’ trend is the promotion of freedom. Your meals don’t have to follow an expected format. Dinner doesn’t have to be the biggest meal of the day. You can create meals and snacks that incorporate both pleasure and nutrition. I think there is this pervasive idea in our culture that women have to be told what and how to eat, like we can’t be trusted to figure out how to nourish our bodies ourselves. And it’s complicated because food is related to socioeconomic circumstances, food deserts/how our cities are designed, patriarchal Eurocentric beauty ideals, time poverty…there are a lot of external factors that affect our diets. (And that’s not even including the pressures and judgments society places on mothers and what they feed their kids.) But I think women can be trusted to follow our instincts and eat in a way that’s nourishing both to our bodies and souls. It’s all the other stuff I just listed that gets in the way.
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