From "What I eat in a day" to fast food: how social media is changing the diet of teenagers

Today, teenagers are exposed daily to recipes, restaurant reviews, blogger tips, and videos in the "What I eat in a Day" format. A new study has shown that such content can cause hunger, the desire to try certain foods, and even influence food choices. At the same time, teenagers themselves believe that parents can help reduce the impact of algorithms — not so much by prohibitions, but by talking and spending time together. About how social networks shape eating habits and why scientists suggest involving the whole family in this process, see the Izvestia article.

When one video makes you hungry

The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, is based on four focus groups involving 25 teenagers aged 15-16 from a single high school in the Midwestern United States. The researchers wanted to understand how schoolchildren use the TikTok social network, what food content they see most often, how much they trust it, and what place parents occupy in this process.

Teenagers said that they regularly encounter a variety of nutrition-related content. Recipes, viral gastronomic trends, restaurant reviews, blogger advertising integrations, videos in the "What I eat in a day" format, as well as regular food advertisements appear in their feed. According to the study participants, such videos often arouse a desire to eat, buy the dish shown, or try it for the first time.

The researchers note that teenagers are most influenced not so much by the information itself as by the way it is presented. Beautifully shot dishes, close-ups of food, positive comments from other users and recommendations from popular bloggers significantly increased interest in the products. Even if teenagers understood that they were facing an advertising integration, acquaintances or trustworthy influencers could still convince them to pay attention to a particular product.

In recent years, researchers have increasingly said that visual content about food can influence eating behavior. For example, research on digital food marketing shows that social media allows advertising to seamlessly integrate into entertainment content, making it more difficult for teenagers to distinguish commercial promotion from sincere recommendations.

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Parents can "break" the algorithm

Despite the active use of TikTok, most of the study participants admitted that parents practically do not interfere with what they watch on the app every day. However, teenagers themselves noted situations when the influence of adults nevertheless changed their behavior.

According to participants, there was less time on TikTok if parents offered to have dinner together, family activities, or any other off-screen communication. Such moments literally interrupted the endless feed of recommendations and reduced the amount of food content that teenagers had time to see.

Teenagers said that their parents sometimes helped to critically evaluate what they saw. For example, they asked questions about how reliable the advice on dieting and weight loss is, and reminded that the appearance of popular bloggers may be unattainable for most people, and the products they advertise are not a universal solution for everyone.

The authors of the study believe that these results can be useful in developing programs for teaching media literacy and the basics of healthy eating. In their opinion, such programs should include not only teenagers, but also parents, since it is the joint discussion of what they have seen that helps to form a more critical attitude towards content on social networks.

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From recipes to "perfect nutrition"

The authors of the study emphasize that so far they cannot say exactly how watching videos on TikTok affects the real diet of teenagers. Their work was of high quality: the scientists studied not the amount of food they ate, but how the students themselves perceive the content they saw. The next step should be research to assess whether teenagers' eating habits change after regularly watching such videos and which methods of parental support are most effective.

However, the problem of the influence of digital content on eating behavior has been studied for several years. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that children and adolescents regularly encounter digital food marketing, and social networks allow them to make advertising as personalized as possible. Unlike traditional media, algorithms take into account the user's interests and offer content that is highly likely to attract their attention. This makes product promotion more effective and at the same time complicates control by parents and the state.

Another feature of social media is advertising, which often looks like ordinary user content. Instead of a traditional commercial, a teenager sees his favorite blogger trying a new dessert, sharing a recipe, or showing his diet. Because of this, the line between personal recommendation and commercial promotion becomes less obvious, and the credibility of such publications increases.

Research shows that on digital platforms, teenagers are most often confronted with advertisements for drinks, fast food, sweets and other products that are not among the most useful. At the same time, it's not so much the brands themselves that have the greatest impact, but the visual presentation, humor, popular trends, special offers, and the involvement of influencers. It is these techniques that teenagers call the most attractive.

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Bans work worse than talking

The authors of the new paper do not propose to limit the use of TikTok or completely exclude teenagers from social networks. On the contrary, the results of the study show that parents' participation in discussing the content they see may be more effective. If adults help critically evaluate statements about diets, appearance, or an "ideal" lifestyle, teenagers begin to treat such publications less trustfully.

According to the researchers, media literacy is becoming as important a part of a healthy lifestyle today as knowledge about proper nutrition. It is important for teenagers to understand that the popularity of a blogger does not make his advice scientifically sound, and an attractive picture does not always reflect reality. That is why the authors propose to include parents in programs to teach the basics of nutrition and critical perception of information on social networks.

WHO experts also believe that the protection of children and adolescents requires not only family efforts, but also broader measures. The organization notes that digital marketing of unhealthy products is becoming more complex and personalized, and existing regulatory mechanisms are not always keeping pace with the development of social networks. Therefore, experts suggest simultaneously developing media literacy, improving the rules of digital advertising and reducing the amount of marketing that children and adolescents face on a daily basis.