Brittany Dawn, a health and fitness influencer with 1.4 million followers on TikTok, promoted her curated 90-day meal and fitness plan on the app for the modest price range of $92- $300.

However, in February 2023, after thousands of purchases, the operation encountered a snag: The state of Texas sued her under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act for distributing the meal plan despite not being a licensed physician. 

According to court documents, in a post uploaded to her account, Dawn framed her plan as treatment for eating disorders, sharing that she overcame her own by following her program. The plan did not deliver on this promise with 14 of her followers who purchased the plan testifying that it exacerbated pre-existing eating disorders.

The lawsuit settled in April 2023, and the influencer was ordered to pay a $400,000 fine. While all posts marketing her plan have been deleted from her account, the story has continued to circulate, a discouraging commentary on the misinformation that appears ubiquitously on social media.

The internet teems with contradictory advice on what constitutes a healthy diet, and deciphering between true and false–even from seemingly reputable media–has become a Sisyphean task. Even when casually browsing online, viewers are battered by a flurry of suggestions from pseudo experts and promotional influencers.

Among one of the more alarming examples that have gained traction on social media are raw meat diets. Exactly as it sounds, this diet advocates for a “return” to carnivorous tendencies. Never mind that early hominins subsisted entirely as herbivores before evolving into an omnivorous species. 

One account on TikTok, @coachcarnivorecam, with an astonishing 153.7K followers, regularly posts videos of himself eating meals consisting entirely of raw meat. It goes without saying that the consumption of raw meat has a host of potentially dangerous repercussions. While one would hope that majority of fans only view the account for its shock factor or hilarity, others have followed suit in this concerning trend.

On the other end of the spectrum, misinformation can wear a less obvious guise; the vitamins that many Americans take daily make for a subtler culprit. 

Various medical journals have cited clinical evidence that multivitamin supplements are ineffective in reducing rates of heart disease and cancer. On the contrary, certain vitamin supplements had negative effects on health when taken too often or in high doses. Physicians have loudly avowed that the vitamins found in these supplements are better attained through food. 

Garnering millions of likes, posts from influencers promote dietary supplements with largely untested claims, professing that these vitamins can alleviate a gamut of health issues. A few of the most common assertions include that they can lessen anxiety, better sleep health, and aid in weight loss. Despite research that suggests otherwise, influencers have claimed the supplements have profound effects on their health. 

TikTok’s video medium tends to bring barriers down, to make it feel as if these creators are just passing along friendly advice. These videos are filmed in their homes, and most viewers are watching within theirs, instilling a false sense of trust that can make users vulnerable.

In a TEDx Talk on media manipulation, Nate Pressner touches on the subject: “Our attention became the product in the form of views, clicks, and likes.” With attention having become its own form of currency, influencers have become peddlers vying for it.

Moreover, traditional diets present their own range of misconceptions. One is that processed foods have lower nutritional value. While certain processed foods can cause more harm than good, this blanket statement doesn’t encompass all.

NASH’s nutrition teacher Mrs. LaSitis offered her input on the matter.

“Processed foods get a bad rap, and while a lot of them should, they can also be really helpful for speeding up the cooking process and eliminating food waste,” Lasitis said. “Frozen produce like spinach, diced cauliflower, and fruit are great examples of processed foods that speed up the cooking process.”

Diets offer individuals a route to attain their goals, most frequently  these aspirations consist of losing weight or improving health. However, these routes are seldom paved successfully and not by any fault of oneself. Any veteran of dietary regimens knows the familiar, brief success, the soon-following screeching halt of progress, and the steady backslide to their former weight.

More than just individual experiences, this pattern has science behind it. When first beginning a diet, weight loss may gain some momentum, and a few pounds may be shed. A few months in, this rapid weight loss will send signals to the body which causes its survival instincts to kick in, and it increases appetite while decreasing the amount of calories burned. These diets become increasingly challenging to sustain, yet the blame tends to fall back on “lack of discipline.”

Another misconception about dieting is that it is often seen as the avenue to achieving multiple health goals all wrapped neatly together in one. As LaSitis attests, different goals necessitate different nutritional approaches.

“Students always want to know for any particular food, ‘Is this healthy?’ she said. “And it really comes down to what your health goals are. I always say calories are most important for weight loss, nutrients are most important for health and bodily maintenance, macros (carbs, proteins and fat) are important for satiety, and food choices (things you like and eat) are for family rituals, heritage and celebration.”

With an easily accessible wealth of information available at the press of a button, why do outrageous diets and simple misconceptions propagate across the internet? Is it simply ignorance that causes the public to fan the flames?

Perhaps it’s not solely a lack of education that results in misconceptions concerning diet, but an excess of unverified information that leads people to adopt far-reaching conclusions. 

The information that populates social media pages, coming from primarily unqualified creators eager to share their opinions, plays a key role in perpetuating confusion, demoralizing users and degrading truth in the process. And while it may be permissible–even expected–for social media platforms to manipulate users’ perceptions of nutrition, it is unexpected that one of the most renowned educational institutions in the country finds a defect in the advice of the leading authority on the subject.

The pervading nutritional advice put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture comes in the form of a diagram called MyPlate. Created in 2008 under the Obama administration, it has served to educate the public on what their plate should look like.

With its color-blocked portions that represent designated food groups, MyPlate makes for a digestible visual. However, Harvard scholars have pointed out some key flaws and oversights in the MyPlate model. An article published by the university improved upon MyPlate’s suggestions with a similar diagram dubbed the “Healthy Eating Plate.” 

This new touchstone includes examples of healthier options within each food group, recommending the avoidance of red meats and specifying healthy sources fats and protein. The former is a new addition, which had been excluded entirely from MyPlate.

The Healthy Eating Plate design differed in another key way, debunking a long questioned aspect of MyPlate: Instead of milk, they advise drinking water, tea, or coffee with meals. 

These changes occurred in light of research that shows that, contrary to popular belief, milk has little to no effect on preventing bone fractures. In fact, one study found that drinking milk regularly can even elevate the risk of prostate or ovarian cancer.

Within the scope of history, dietary guidelines are relatively new concept, but already in this short period of time nutritional advice has fluctuated subtly.

As consumers, we must be skeptical–even when information comes from trusted sources–and we must formulate our own conclusions in order to stay afloat in a vast sea of misinformation.