What Is the "Almond Mom" Trend?

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How the #almondmom TikTok trend is starting important conversations about the impact of diet culture

Co-authored by Souad Gharib and Dev Murphy, MA

Last Updated: August 11, 2023

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Definition

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Origins

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The Almond Mom Trend & Diet Culture

If you’re on TikTok, you’ve probably come across videos about “almond moms.” But what does this term mean, and where did it come from? We’ve got everything you need to know about the trending topic, including its origins, its usage, and its contributions to the national conversation about diet culture and fatphobia. Keep reading to learn more.

Things You Should Know

An “almond mom” refers to a mother who is diet-obsessed and projects unhealthy body image standards onto her children, usually daughters.
Almond moms likely grew up feeling pressure to conform to diet culture themselves and passed that pressure onto their own children.
The term has been spoofed in TikTok videos and has highlighted the need for conversation around the harm of fatphobia and diet culture, especially among young people.

Section 1 of 3:

What is an “almond mom”?

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An almond mom is a slang term for a diet-obsessed mother. The phrase refers to mothers who prioritize their children’s (especially daughters’) thinness over their emotional and sometimes physical well-being. The term is often used by people who grew up with such a mother and are now working to unlearn the unrealistic and unhealthy body image standards cultivated in them from a young age.^{[1]
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- “Almond moms” might discourage their children from indulging, even on special occasions, under the guise of being "health-" or "fitness-centered."
- Almond moms may be prone to parroting dieting platitudes like "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips" or "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
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The “almond mom” persona is rooted in fatphobia and internalized bias. The almond mom rarely centers her obsessions totally on her children; she almost always adheres to the demands of diet culture herself as well, exercising and dieting compulsively and pressuring her kids to do the same. Her attitude is rooted in unhealthy beauty standards and an internalized bias towards thinness—in other words, much of her concerns about her own weight, appearance, and overall worth are projected onto her child.
- Almond moms likely grew up dieting themselves and pass the pressure to conform to diet culture onto their kids.

Section 2 of 3:

Almond Mom Origins

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An old Real Housewives clip inspired the almond mom TikTok trend. After a clip from a 2014 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills resurfaced in 2022, the hashtag “#almond mom” took off on TikTok. In the clip, then-seventeen-year-old model Gigi Hadid tells her mother, Yolanda Hadid, that she feels “really weak. I had, like, half an almond.” Her mother replies, “Have a couple of almonds and chew them really well.”^{[2]
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- The precise origin of the hashtag is unclear, but TikTok user Tyler Bender is one of the most popular creators of “#almondmom” content. In her many videos poking fun at the term, she acts as an almond mom and says things like, “We’re not really 'doing bread' right now” and “Sharks only eat one meal a day.”^{[3]
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Section 3 of 3:

The Almond Mom Trend & Diet Culture

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The almond mom trend promotes conversations about fatphobia. By shining a spotlight on the problems of diet culture, the almond mom trend encourages discussion around how fatphobia, including internalized fatphobia, affects young people’s self esteem while growing up. While most of the almond mom TikToks are humorous or self-deprecating, they nevertheless speak to the seriousness impact of diet culture on parenting and create space for viewers to speak about their own experiences growing up with a parent obsessed with body image.
- Though many TikTok videos allude to the stress and self-esteem issues that are symptomatic of the almond mom parenting style, the trend isn’t necessarily about vilifying diet-obsessed moms.
- Instead, the trend highlights the importance of conversations about fatphobia generally and its traumatic effects on both the children of almond moms and on the almond moms themselves, who suffer from the expectation to adhere to unrealistic beauty standards.^{[4]
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