You’re probably wondering – what does social media have to do with sugar? Well, I think eating a lot of sugar and social media are actually pretty related. With social media, we are constantly checking our phones, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and whatever else the kids are using these days. I recently took a flight across the country, and the wifi on the airplane was not working. People were freaking out! Sugar, with its energetic and anxiety producing properties, feeds into this obsession in my opinion.

Well, it’s not really an opinion, it’s fact.  A Canadian study took a look at almost 9,000 teenagers and found that increased use of social media correlated with a decrease in nutrition. Researchers discovered this by surveying the students and controlling for other possible factors. Students who reported using social networking sites (that’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat,etc.) for less than one hour had a 67% chance of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages, for two hours it was almost 1.5 times that, and for five or more hours a day the odds were almost 3.3 times greater.

Our society is go – go – go. We are all time-crunched. But what about all of that time spent obsessively checking our social media accounts? Those moments add up. And, how many times have you done a “quick five minute check,” just to have that turn into an hour without realizing it? Just imagine what you could do with an extra hour or two every day!

Your challenge:

Take a 48 hour social media detox. Turn off any social media alerts. For most of us, this might make the most sense to plan to do this over a weekend. What did you learn about your relationship with social media over these 48 hours?