Mediterranean Diet Information on TikTok and Implications for Digital Health Promotion Research: Social Media Content Analysis

Authors

Margaret Raber
Haley Allen
Sophia Huang
Maria Vazquez
Echo Warner
Debbe Thompson

Publication Date

6-19-2024

Journal

JMIR Formative Research

DOI

10.2196/51094

PMID

38896841

PMCID

PMC11222766

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

6-19-2024

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

no

Keywords

misinformation, social media, Mediterranean Diet, content analysis, health communication, communication, TikTok, diet, cardiometabolic disease, cardiometabolic, consumer, eating, social media, quality, mHealth, mobile health, digital health, promotion research, nutrition therapy, healthy diet

Abstract

Background: The Mediterranean diet has been linked to reduced risk for several cardiometabolic diseases. The lack of a clear definition of the Mediterranean diet in the scientific literature and the documented proliferation of nutrition misinformation on the internet suggest the potential for confusion among consumers seeking web-based Mediterranean diet information.

Objective: We conducted a social media content analysis of information about the Mediterranean diet on the influential social media platform, TikTok, to examine public discourse about the diet and identify potential areas of misinformation. We then analyzed these findings in the context of health promotion to identify potential challenges and opportunities for the use of TikTok in promoting the Mediterranean diet for healthy living.

Methods: The first-appearing 202 TikTok posts that resulted from a search of the hashtag #mediterraneandiet were downloaded and qualitatively examined. Post features and characteristics, poster information, and engagement metrics were extracted and synthesized across posts. Posts were categorized as those created by health professionals and those created by nonhealth professionals based on poster-reported credentials. In addition to descriptive statistics of the entire sample, we compared posts created by professionals and nonprofessionals for content using chi-square tests.

Results: TikTok posts varied in content, but posts that were developed by health professionals versus nonprofessionals were more likely to offer a definition of the Mediterranean diet (16/106, 15.1% vs 2/96, 2.1%; P=.001), use scientific citations to support claims (26/106, 24.5% vs 0/96, 0%; P<.001), and discuss specific nutrients (33/106, 31.1% vs 6/96, 6.3%; P<.001) and diseases related to the diet (27/106, 25.5% vs 5/96, 5.2%; P<.001) compared to posts created by nonhealth professionals.

Conclusions: Social media holds promise as a venue to promote the Mediterranean diet, but the variability in information found in this study highlights the need to create clear definitions about the diet and its components when developing Mediterranean diet interventions that use new media structures.