lies, damn lies, and tiktok

Maybe you’ve already seen this headline circulating: only 2.1% of nutrition posts on TikTok are accurate.

Cue shock - but not from me.

A Dublin City University/My Fitness Pal study showed that only 2.1% of nutrition posts on TikTok were sharing accurate information. In other words: instead of going into a TikTok browse assuming you’ll be shown truth, you can almost guarantee it won’t be worth your time - and it may even be harmful.

These are just preliminary findings. There will be more rigor addressed to them. But… they aren’t alone. A peer-reviewed study out of the University of Sydney in Australia was published in February of 2025 and showed just what is going wrong in these TikTok posts - let’s review:

The 5 Cardinal Sins of TikTok Nutrition

1) Lack of transparency: 82% of posts lacked transparent advertising, 77% of posts failed to disclose conflicts of interest.

This is HUGE. Why might someone promote a cleanse drink, or a supplement, or a diet program? Follow the money. The fact that there is lack of appropriate disclosure in these posts is manipulation.

2) More of the same: 63% of posts promoted stereotypical attitudes.

Backing up the same inaccuracies that have already been peddled isn’t helping anyone. It’s just reinforcing damaging thought patterns - ones that the audience is already conditioned to believe.

3) Straight up lies: 55% of posts did not provide evidence-based information, 75% of posts lacked balanced and accurate content.

Enough said - over half of the nutrition TikTok posts are not even worth your 10 seconds it takes to swipe past them.

4) Only sharing part of the story: 90% failed to point out the risk and benefits of the advice presented.

Sharing a half truth is so damaging. This is like a friend telling you, "this supplement fixed my gut health!" but they left out that it gave them diarrhea, costs $80 a month, and their "gut health" is just them being less bloated after working with a dietitian on their real food triggers.

5) The content creators, by and large, are not clinicians. They are enthusiasts looking to capitalize on what interests their base, what will grow them a following, and let them monetize off of it.

One last thought on this… the study from the University of Sydney found a much more encouraging percentage of post accuracy breakdown: 36% of posts were considered completely accurate, while 24% were mostly inaccurate, and 18% completely inaccurate.

While that sounds a lot better than a 2.1% accuracy rate, I challenge you with this: would you accept a 36% accuracy rate from a smoke detector? A pregnancy test? Your car brakes? No. No one would accept "well, they work sometimes!" And we shouldn’t accept that level of inaccuracy from our health information either.

So why do we keep watching these tiktoks?

Let me interject a bit of empathy here, both for the audience and for the creators. Don’t we all just want to feel better? Live healthier? Do the right thing?

When it comes to long-term health, what we’ve been doing for years affects us in a cumulative manner. It’s sometimes said “that plaque that causes the heart attack at 70 started building in the 20s”.

And we all know this - we’ve been living in our bodies for years and we understand cause and effect. So when we notice we’ve been feeling run down, or something looks different, or a loved one has a heart attack or complications from kidney disease, it’s natural to want to make some changes so we prevent issues for ourselves. And if we’re committing to these changes for years, we want to make sure we’re making the right changes.

But oh, there is so much information out there. Too much information. The advice I see on my For You Page contradicts itself. It’s confusing. And it’s hard to make changes, but they’re saying if you just change this one diet swap, or buy this one supplement, you’ll feel better. Tempting!

Where can we go from here?

Here's what I know: you deserve better than a 36% accuracy rate when it comes to your health. One of my favorite activities with a client is sitting down with all things they’ve heard and tried, and piecing apart what the evidence really says, and finding what will work for you. Between TikToks, the podcast tips, the things your coworker swears by, we’ll systematically evaluate what's evidence-based, what's context-dependent, and what's simply noise. Let’s partner up and take this on together!