Scientists say half the advice on TikTok about this popular diet is wrong and has no evidence to back it up.
More and more research shows that the Mediterranean diet is a healthy way to eat that helps prevent heart disease and other long-term health problems.
However, according to a new study, users looking for diet advice on the popular social media platform TikTok are more likely to obtain advice that is neither associated with the Mediterranean diet nor especially healthy.
The study’s lead author, Margaret Raber, DrPH, assistant professor in the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture and Baylor College of Medicine, says: “People will not be able to follow the Mediterranean diet unless they understand what it is and how to integrate it into their home food environment.”
The findings of this study “suggest that while users will find some high-quality content created by health professionals,” according to the study author, “they will also encounter conflicting, vague or even misleading information when exploring #mediterraneandiet on TikTok.”
The Mediterranean diet is a way of eating that focuses on plant-based foods that have been processed as little as possible. These foods include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans. Added sugars, refined carbohydrates, and saturated fats are limited.
Even though the diet gets its name from the way people in some countries along the Mediterranean Sea used to eat, not all of the different foods of the Mediterranean region follow the diet as scientists and doctors understand it. This has contributed to widespread misunderstanding of the Mediterranean diet’s exact guidelines.
Researchers examined the first 200 videos posted to TikTok in August 2021 with the hashtag #mediterraneandiet to get a sense of how this would play out on the platform.
They found that most of the posts (78 percent) had something to do with health, but less than 9 percent explained what the Mediterranean diet is.
One out of every five posts was entirely unrelated to health, concentrating solely on food and culture from nations around the Mediterranean Sea.
“Alarmingly, a large portion (69%) of these ‘culture’ posts promoted foods that are not part of the healthy eating pattern promoted by the Mediterranean diet, such as red meat, refined carbohydrates, sweets and processed foods,” Raber adds.
Common dishes like lamb kebabs and pita bread may be staples in various Mediterranean countries, but they don’t fit in with the traditional diet of those regions.
The study found that, on average, information published by posters who claimed health credentials tended to be more thorough and of higher quality. Just over half of posters (53 percent) listed health credentials on their account information page, but these posters didn’t talk about their health credentials in more than half of their posts. This made it hard for TikTok users to figure out which videos were made by posters with health credentials.
Raber advised anyone looking for nutrition information on social media to look for content from people who have health credentials and to ask their own healthcare provider if the information seems contradictory or confused. She said that the study shows that people who work in public health and in clinics need to come up with new ways to talk about nutrition and fight misinformation online.
“We need to be vigilant about the information found on social media, particularly if it influences health and wellness decisions,” Raber says. “I don’t think we can fully harness the power of social media for health promotion unless we address the issue of information quality and give the public tools to help navigate these new types of media,” adds the author.
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