A study by researchers from the University of Vermont reveals that TikTok food and nutrition content reinforces harmful diet culture among young users, with professional voices primarily absent. The researchers call for moving to a weight-inclusive diet and reconsidering social views around bodies, food, and health.
Weight-Normative Content Prevalent in TikTok
The study, titled "Weight-normative messaging predominates on TikTok-A qualitative content analysis," published in PLOS One, reveals that weight-normative messaging dominates TikTok with the most popular videos glorifying weight loss and portraying food as a means of achieving thinness and health.
According to SciTech Daily, the research is particularly concerning, given that prior studies indicate a link between social media usage in young adults and disordered eating behaviors and negative body image.
Lizzy Pope, the senior researcher and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at UVM expresses concern over the unrealistic and inaccurate portrayal of food, nutrition, and health on TikTok. The video-sharing app has a high percentage of young users who are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of being exposed to weight loss content.
This study is the first to analyze nutrition and body-image-related content on TikTok comprehensively. The researchers examined the top 100 videos from 10 popular hashtags related to nutrition, food, and weight and coded them for key themes.
The study began in 2020, and each selected hashtag had over a billion views. The hashtags have grown significantly as TikTok's user base has expanded.
The research team found it surprising that weight-related content dominated TikTok to the extent it did, with billions of people viewing content about weight online, indicating diet culture's prominent role in society.
Marisa Minadeo, the study's co-author and a recent UVM graduate, conducted the research as part of her undergraduate thesis. The study's findings raise concerns about the impact of social media on young people's mental and physical health and call for a more balanced and accurate portrayal of food, nutrition, and health on TikTok.
Weight-inclusive Approach to Nutrition
As per the News Medical Life Sciences report, the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the University of Vermont (UVM) has adopted a weight-inclusive approach to teaching dietetics.
It centers on evaluating a person's health and well-being using non-weight markers and rejects the notion of a "normal" weight that applies to everyone. The department's director, Lizzy Pope, warns that perpetuating weight normativity amounts to perpetuating fat bias.
As part of a study, UVM health and society major Marisa Minadeo and her advisor, Lizzy Pope, examined the role of TikTok as a source of information about nutrition and healthy eating behaviors. They found that TikTok influencers in the academic nutrition space did not impact the platform's overall nutrition content.
The content creators analyzed in the study were predominantly white female adolescents and young adults, with very few experts among them.
Lizzy Pope emphasizes the need for critical thinking skills among young people and a radical shift in how we relate to our bodies, food, and health to enable people to lead happy and healthy lives. The weight-inclusive approach to nutrition is gaining traction as a more holistic evaluation of a person's health.
Check out more news and information on TikTok in Science.
