TikToker who judged people’s food shops has senior student welfare job at Bristol Uni

Olympia Anley, the TikTok influencer whose video judging a stranger’s food shop has been widely condemned, is in fact employed by Bristol University in a senior student welfare job.

20-year-old Olympia is the Chief Resident of a modern city centre Bristol hall of residence.

Her job involves being “approachable and non-judgemental” to the residents, the vast majority of whom are in their first year of university.

As part of the pastoral role, Chief Residents are also expected to help identify “vulnerable” students or those “struggling with University life”.

The second year student came under fire last week after she took to TikTok to share her views on the basket of a stranger’s food shop.

In a video viewed more than 1.6 million times, she told her followers about the stranger “loading on all this junk food”, such as “white bread, Pot Noodles, and crisps”.

While sipping a glass of iced lemon water, she said: “I don’t wanna offend anyone with this video, but we live in a society that has normalised and literally encourages treating the symptom and not the cause and I wanna talk about it.

“Something I’m snobby about and not proud of are people’s food shops.

“I was at the supermarket this afternoon just doing my food shop and the woman in front of me – just for context, she might have been having a party, I don’t know if she was going to eat it or who the food was for – but she was loading on all this junk food – white bread, crisps, Pot Noodles, all that kind of stuff.

“And also, a whole load of medicine – pills, sachets, I could not believe it.

“Anyway, it was so paradoxical for me and again, no judgement and I don’t know her personal situation, but it really spoke to me about how we don’t pay attention to what we’re putting in our bodies enough.

“And then we numb it with drugs so we can’t feel what’s going on inside.

“Now I’m no nutritionist or functional health practitioner, but you ingest crap, you feel crap and you get all sorts of illnesses, symptoms and diseases that arise from not looking after your body properly.”

Before taking down her account over the weekend, the video was initially captioned: “Moral of the story, don’t go in front of me at the cashier – sorry for the rant.”

Despite her account often displaying her affluent lifestyle, her video was brandished “out of touch” by fans and was met with widespread criticism across TikTok.

In a video viewed more than 200,000 times, Reb McComb explained why so many people think the comments are “tone deaf”.

“You are privileged to be able to eat in a way that can nourish your body. Most people don’t have the money to be able to look at a food label and think ‘hmm is this going to give me all the micronutrients that I need?’. Most people are picking up what they can thinking ‘oh god I hope this is enough food to last me’.”

A recent study found a quarter of students at Russell Group universities are regularly skipping meals because they can’t afford to buy all the food they need amidst the cost of living crisis.

In her role at Bristol, a Russell Group university, Olympia is in charge of “developing and maintaining a positive student experience for all students ensuring that student wellbeing is supported”.

Not only is she is the only Chief Resident at the city centre hall of residence, she oversees and acts as mentor to two Senior Residents who also live at the accommodation.

In the outline of the job description seen by The Tab, it reads: “You will provide active peer support to a specific cohort of students engaging in regular contact through communicating informally by initiating conversations whilst circulating in the accommodation and formally through the facilitation of regular ‘kitchen’ meetings to deliver key messages.

“You will be seen as approachable, non-judgemental, and keen to interact with your students and will assist the Residential Life service in identifying at an early-stage student who may vulnerable or struggling with University life and potential conflict within student residences.”

The university’s job description also says the role is filled by “postgraduate students”. When The Tab asked Bristol University why a 20-year-old philosophy undergraduate was employed in a role for postgraduate students, the university did not answer.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

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