— We need to reframe what healthy looks like to adolescents
by Radhika Desai
May 14, 2026
• 3 min read
At an annual pediatrics visit, a 15-year-old female patient told me she was trying to "eat healthier." I asked her to tell me what that looked like, so she pulled out her phone and opened to a TikTok video titled "what I eat in a day." The woman in the video showed her meals from the day prior: iced coffee and a spoonful of probiotic yogurt for breakfast, a small plate of sauteed vegetables for lunch, two rice cakes and peanut butter as a snack, and a plate of zero-carb pasta with cottage cheese sauce for dinner. The comments were flooded with people applauding her.
