Raising a "Natural" and Well Child within a Virtual Village: A Social Practice Analysis of #Crunchymomtok As an Online Parenting Community

Parents' engagement with social media has important implications for child wellbeing and health. Our research examines the sociological implications of virtual parenting communities, specifically #CrunchyMomTok, in relation to digital health and wellbeing. Our approach recognises the inseparability of virtual and offline "doings and sayings" in an increasingly digital world. Alongside social practice-based ethnographic field work using multiple qualitative methods, we analysed over 100 TikTok videos to determine how elements of social practices circulated within an online community known as #crunchymomtok, and how these findings connected to our broader research.

Viewed through a social practice lens, our research shows ways participants are recruited to (and defect from) social practices, and explores the democratisation and contestation of health and wellbeing knowledge within #crunchymomtok, contributing to discussions on evolving parenting-provider relationships and parenting ideologies.

Our analysis shows the role shared imaginaries play in shaping health, often focused on romanticised ideals of 'natural' living. These imaginaries, visually reinforced through highly produced content, idealise certain ways of "doing" parenting, remediating isolation faced by some parents who practice natural living and contributing to parenting practices outside the virtual space.

We discuss how participation within online communities intersects with resource availability, potentially exacerbating individual responsibility placed on parents for children's health outcomes.

Methodologically, we demonstrate how exploring both virtual and offline spaces revealed connections between and across these spaces in relation to health decision-making and parent-care provider interactions.

Our research highlights the critical interplay between virtual and physical spaces in shaping parenting practices, contributing to both the sociology of parenting and digital sociology. We aim to advance understandings of online parenting communities' impact on the evolving nature of care work and parenting, as well as broader sociological discourse on the digitalisation of daily life within the context of modern parenting and child wellbeing.