Key Takeaways
- A peer-reviewed study commissioned by MyFitnessPal and conducted by Dublin City University, University of Central Florida, and University of Tulsa researchers has been published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition (Springer Nature), examined how Gen Z TikTok users trust nutrition influencers and the content they share.
- Accuracy was the strongest driver of trust, but simply claiming a nutrition qualification was enough to boost trust on its own, even when the advice was wrong.
- A separate companion analysis of over 67,000 TikTok food videos–preliminary findings not yet peer reviewed–found only 2.1% of content could be classified as accurate against public health nutrition guidelines; most of the rest was too vague or anecdotal to evaluate at all.
- These findings reinforce what MyFitnessPal has long known. The internet is full of nutrition noise, and people deserve better tools and better information to cut through it.
Twenty Years of Watching Fads Come and Go
For 20 years, MyFitnessPal has had a front-row seat to the rise and fall of nearly every nutrition trend imaginable: juice cleanses, detox teas, the cabbage soup diet, the Carnivore diet, and whatever happened to be going viral on the internet that week. What we’ve always known, and what science continues to confirm, is that none of these shortcuts work the way they promise. Real, sustainable progress comes from understanding what you’re eating and building habits that last.
But the stakes of nutrition misinformation have never felt higher. Social media has made it faster and easier than ever to spread health claims that are unverified, inaccurate, or outright dangerous, and platforms like TikTok have become a primary destination for health and wellness advice, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. That’s why, in 2023, we partnered with Dublin City University to study this problem head-on in an effort to understand what’s being said and how people are responding to it.
Why Credentials and Accuracy Both Matter
In May 2026, a study commissioned by MyFitnessPal and conducted by researchers at Dublin City University’s TrustLab was published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, a peer-reviewed journal. The paper, titled “Examining the Spread of Nutrition-Based Misinformation by TikTok Influencers: An Experimental Analysis of Trust Among Young Adults,” is now available in full here.
The study recruited 1,016 Gen Z TikTok users between the ages of 18 and 26 from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Researchers designed a controlled experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to watch one of six TikTok-style videos. Each video varied in two key ways: the stated qualifications of the influencer (qualified dietitian, unqualified, or no qualification stated) and the accuracy of the nutrition information provided (accurate or misinformation).
Young adults consistently trusted influencers more when they claimed to hold a nutrition qualification, but that trust held even when the advice being given was factually wrong. In other words, the credential alone was enough to drive trust, independent of whether the information was accurate. Across all conditions, trust in both the influencer and the message was meaningfully higher when accurate information was shared, but simply claiming to be a dietitian was enough to earn trust, even when the advice was wrong.
The study also surfaced important cross-country differences, though researchers noted these findings are exploratory. Canadian participants consistently reported the lowest trust in both influencers and their advice across conditions, while UK participants reported the highest trust in influencers who disclosed they were unqualified, trusting them nearly as much as credentialed ones.
The researchers concluded that the findings support encouraging qualified nutrition professionals to prominently disclose their credentials, ensure the accuracy of their posts by widely referencing widely accepted guidelines and evidence-based consensus, and actively work to counter inaccurate information shared by others. At MyFitnessPal, that philosophy is core to how we operate, from our Scientific Advisory Council to the registered dietitians who inform the guidance within our app.
We Analyzed 67,000 TikTok Videos and Only 2.1% Were Accurate
The peer-reviewed study above represents one part of a two-part research partnership with Dublin City University. A companion analysis––preliminary findings not yet peer reviewed––researchers examined 67,211 TikTok food videos posted by 458 popular health and wellness influencers across the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Registered dietitians were excluded from the influencer pool, to reflect the content most users actually encounter. The influencers in the study averaged 1.02 million followers each and had received approximately 22.8 million likes on their content.
Using an AI-assisted methodology, combined multiple analysis techniques, researchers evaluated each video’s voiceover against established public health and nutrition guidelines.
The result: only 2.1% of all content could be classified as verifiably accurate.
Strikingly, very little of the remainder was outright misinformation either — most content simply couldn’t be evaluated at all: recipes without portion or ingredient detail, taste-based reviews, personal anecdotes mixed with nutrition claims, and cooking content with no nutritional information whatsoever. In other words, the challenge for a young person scrolling TikTok may be less about spotting lies and more about the near-absence of advice grounded in scientific guidelines – content that sounds like nutrition guidance but can’t be checked against anything. Understanding why so much of this content resists classification is the focus of ongoing research.
The peer-reviewed experiment shows Gen Z users place more trust in creators who disclose nutrition qualifications and in advice that aligns with WHO guidance. People want credible guidance. The companion analysis suggests it’s rarely what the algorithm serves them.
How MyFitnessPal Is Built to Cut Through the Noise
Research is only valuable if it drives action. At MyFitnessPal, this work has reinforced commitments we’ve held for years and pushed us to build new ones.
Our Scientific Advisory Council brings together leading nutrition and medical experts to ensure that the guidance we provide is grounded in evidence, not viral trends. Our in-house registered dietitians, including our Head of Nutrition, work alongside our team every day to make sure that standard holds. And our in-app features, including Meal Scan, Voice Log, and AI Coach, are designed to make it easier for members to track what they’re actually eating, so they can make informed decisions based on data rather than whatever’s going viral.
This Is Why We Do What We Do
Ninety-eight percent of the nutrition content people encounter from popular influencers on TikTok isn’t accurate. Young adults are trusting credentials over facts, sometimes to their own detriment. That’s why at MyFitnessPal we invested in this research, built the tools you see in the app today, and why we’ll keep pushing through partnerships, the product, and evidence-based science to give people something the algorithm rarely does: the truth about how to properly fuel your body.
Read the full peer-reviewed study here.