Weight-normative messaging predominates on TikTok-A qualitative content analysis

Area of Science:

• Social Media and Health Communication
• Adolescent Nutrition
• Digital Health Behaviors

Background:

• TikTok is a popular social media platform among adolescents and young adults.
• Food, nutrition, and weight-related content is prevalent on TikTok.
• Limited understanding exists regarding the nature and source of nutrition information shared on the platform.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify key themes in food, nutrition, and weight-related content on TikTok.
• To assess the presence of expert voices in nutrition content on TikTok.
• To analyze the perspective (weight-normative vs. weight-inclusive) of health-related content.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 1000 TikTok videos from 10 popular nutrition, food, and weight-related hashtags (each >1 billion views).
• Downloaded the top 100 most viewed videos from each selected hashtag.
• Employed template analysis with two coders to identify key themes and content characteristics.

Main Results:

• Key themes included glorification of weight loss, food positioned for thinness, and a lack of expert nutrition information.
• The majority of posts (less than 3%) adopted a weight-inclusive health view.
• Most content creators were identified as white, female adolescents and young adults.

Conclusions:

• Nutrition content on TikTok is predominantly weight-normative, potentially contributing to disordered eating and body dissatisfaction.
• The lack of expert voices and prevalence of weight-normative messaging pose risks to young users.
• Strategies to improve media literacy and filter triggering content are needed to mitigate negative impacts.