If you’ve spent any time online recently, you’ve probably seen social media content promoting hydrogen water, fat-burning foods, hormone-balancing salads, oatmeals, and other weird-sounding things .
They were described in supposedly scientific-sounding terms, and anecdotes abounded, such as “I lost 30 pounds in two weeks because of X!” Or, “Y prevents Alzheimer’s disease!”
Unsurprisingly, and unfortunately, a recent survey of 2,000 Millennials and Gen Zers in the US, Canada, UK and Australia by My Fitness Pal and Dublin City University found that nutrition on social media Most of the content was found to be inaccurate.
Honestly, I think we as consumers are just getting used to the “miracle” cures and exaggerated claims that are thrown at us on a regular basis. I feel like about half of them aren’t even responding anymore. However, doing so can have a negative impact on our health. At the moment, it’s very difficult to find reliable nutritional information on social media.
As a nutritionist, I have been trained to understand how the body works, how to read and interpret research, and how to break down complex nutritional processes in a way that the average person can understand.
I am also held to standards of ethics and professionalism by regulatory bodies. Yes, you can occasionally use spicy language in your posts. No, you can’t sell fat burners and tell people it will help them lose weight.
Read my VShred review here.
Unfortunately, a lot of the nutrition content you see online is garbage because the majority of content creators don’t have the same standards. Many creators work beyond available evidence to sell a story, and usually a product.
Interestingly, much of this content is promoted under the guise of “wellness” or “health.”
Wellness is not like a few supplements, misinformation, micromanagement or viral trends. None of that makes us healthier.
True health is about allowing your body to do what it does naturally and not feeling the need for intervention unless it is medically necessary.
True health means being able to eat and live without worrying about food.
True health means focusing on your life as a whole, rather than micromanaging or “hacking” every bodily function or diet.
The nutritional credentials of many of these creators are fabricated or provided by unaccredited online programs and are not genuine preparation for providing health information.
Titles such as “nutritional therapist”, “hormone specialist”, “nutritionist”, “juice therapist” etc. are meaningless, but they sound like experts and give the layperson a hard time knowing that they are just illusions. It gives it some kind of credibility.
It goes to another level when people with actual health issues are looking for nutritional advice online to help them feel better. The internet has never been kind to the vulnerable and desperate. They are more likely to jump at the promise of a “quick fix” solution, a cure for an incurable disease, or miraculous results from some supplement.
The contradictions run deep:
Oatmeal is “high in glyphosate,” which can be both healthy and toxic. (wrong)
Alcohol is healthier if it is “natural” or organic. (wrong)
Seed oil is toxic and is basically toxic to motor oil. (I made a mistake again)
The situation becomes even more murky as the professionals we have always thought we could trust with accurate health and nutrition information (RDs, MDs, nurses, etc.) are also spreading pseudoscience.
Ah, Dr. Gundry.
Read my Dr. Gundry review here.
Don’t tell me about people who use the word “doctor” to justify themselves when they’re not even doctors.
Mindy Peltz is one of them.
Read my Fast Like a Girl review here.
In the aforementioned study, preliminary findings showed that of the more than 67,000 videos analyzed, only 2.1% were accurate when compared to public health and nutrition guidelines. The remainder were determined to be inaccurate, partially accurate, or uncertain due to lack of support by scientific evidence.
Let’s look at this 2.1% statistic from another perspective. If you scroll through 100 posts on social media, only two will have accurate nutritional information. But how many of those posts catch your eye? How many of them do you see and how many captions do you read?
How many of those 100 posts plant seeds in your mind that influence your nutritional choices, anxiety levels, or make you question your current habits?
How many of these posts will you believe just because the poster has a large number of followers, legitimate-sounding credentials, or an authoritative way of distributing the information?
With so much content on social media coming your way all at once, it’s hard to step back and be critical. It’s like drinking water from a fire hose.
Even if something seems “different”, people are still willing to try it. The study surveyed TikTok users and found that despite the potential risks of some TikTok trends, 30% of participants had tried TikTok in some way and 31% of them said, It turns out they’ve experienced the negative effects of the “fad diet” trend.
Of those influenced by nutrition and health trends on TikTok, 67% report adopting at least one of these trends several times a week.
It is human nature to want to choose the path of least resistance. It’s also in our nature to want to follow the crowd, test boundaries, and be part of a community. People seem to feel it is flexible to participate in trends that may seem silly and may have negative consequences. (Join the Tide Pod Challenge)
The allure of the possibility of spreading the virus seems to be overtaking people’s ethical responsibility to share accurate information. Thousands of views > Actual truth. Why do we entrust our health to random people?
So how do you know who is providing good information and who is not?
Follow the scientific consensus.
Please use common sense. If science says eating more plants is associated with lower risk of disease, contrarianism like telling people chickpeas and other plants are “trying to kill us” should be avoided.
Cross-check your content if you are unsure whether it matches the consensus.
And if something seems too good to be true (aka “natural Ozempic”), it probably is.
Trusted nutrition sources rarely have contrarians who go against convention. Unfortunately, most accurate nutritional information isn’t trendy or exciting.
Be suspicious of oversimplifications.
Avoid content that suggests that a single food is the cause of all health problems or that a single food can cure them. Allergies and intolerances to any food can exist, but they are the exception, not the norm.
Similarly, be wary of those who promote a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition: “Everyone needs to remove gluten and dairy from their diet.”
Emotions sell.
It’s marketing 101: making people feel something in order to make a sale. Even if you’re the smartest person on the planet, you can still fall prey to an emotional “rags to riches” (or “unhealthy” to “healthy”) story. Suggesting a “makeover” or a cure for something you know won’t heal are both predatory techniques that prey on your emotions.
When you receive a pitch like this, take a step back and consider it.
Red flag words include “toxin.” “Clean” when it relates to food. “purification”; “chemicals” (everything is chemicals). “Natural Solutions”; “Fat Burning”; “Appetite Control”. ‘Transformation’; ‘integrative’ or ‘functional’ medicine.
Here I will share with you the issues I am having with functional medicine experts. Please read here.
Follow people you trust.
Here are some of my favorite trusted nutrition sources on Instagram.
Dr. Adrian Chavez
Dr. Spencer Nadolski
Dr. Karl Nadolski
Dr. Is
Disha Narang, MD
Dr. Andrea Love
Fitness Chef (Graham Tomlinson)
Avoid accounts that always look like they’re selling something.
Be suspicious of anyone trying to sell you private label supplements, MLM products, diets or meal plans.
In my opinion, it’s fine to promote a product from time to time, but someone’s reputation should be established outside of that. If selling a product is an entire brand, it’s dishonest.
It’s not all about followers.
Number of followers is not a good indicator of who is a reliable source of nutrition, and neither are blue checks.
Ever since you can buy verification on Instagram, I think a lot of fake accounts are doing this to look more legitimate.
If you go to (About this account) on your profile page, you’ll see when your page was verified. If you’ve changed your profile name multiple times since March 2023, that’s a red flag.
Food equity is a positive, but elitism is not.
Content creators who seem to imply that the only way to be healthy is to invest in expensive foods and supplements are missing the point. Mark Hyman is a repeat offender of this.
A healthy diet is different for everyone, but the basics include beans and legumes, fruits and vegetables (you don’t have to buy organic), a good mix of fats, whole grains, lean animal protein and fish. There is little need to include more than that. I want you.
Also, no food is off-limits. That too.
There are no secrets.
A lot of content promotes products as “secrets” or “groundbreaking science” that no one knows about.
In fact, if it were that simple, it would not only have been discovered by scientists, but regulated by the FDA and used in mainstream medicine.
You won’t find it sold in MLMs or found in your kitchen.
Also, avoid content that uses fear or conspiracy theories (any mention of Big Pharma or Big Food is a big red flag) to persuade people to change their food choices.
Weight loss and nutrition are not “easy.”
Weight is complex, and so are the food choices we make.
It’s easy for content creators to tell us to change our habits or that their programs or supplements are a “simple” solution, but that’s a big red flag.
Social determinants of health, genetics, culture, trauma, and many other things influence what and how we eat, our weight, and our overall health.
When we are told something is “easy” we feel shame when we fail to complete the task (this is why the diet industry exists…dieting is about failing and repeating over and over again) is).
If you’re interested in a healthy, personalized approach to weight and health that’s not steeped in shame or misinformation, work with a registered dietitian.
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