COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and healthy food blogs: individualized approaches to racial health inequalities

Abstract

In March 2020, the United States began the process of quarantine and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, widespread Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests occurred as a result of the publicized police murder of George Floyd. This article analyzes Instagram posts of popular food bloggers responding to COVID-19 and BLM protests. I find that food bloggers tend to discuss these issues on their Instagram accounts from an individualized perspective, reflecting US ideology toward individualism and failure to act on structural racism. I frame food blogs as a modern form of self-help models and literature which impede the ability to see structural problems and find structural solutions. The individualized approaches taken by food bloggers tend to reflect their privilege as white, middle-class women while also demonstrating continued gendered pressures to work, maintain the household, and raise a healthy family. Overall findings demonstrate the tension between individual level approaches to racism and structural reform needed to combat racism, resulting in depoliticization of issues stemming from systemic racism, impeding effort to create a conversation regarding impactful institutional change.