Montreal: Whether you’re at a party, a family gathering or even at work, chances are you’ve heard someone say: “I’m on the (insert name) diet. It’s amazing!” Or maybe you’ve been the one to say it. Either way, it’s not surprising.
Diet trends are as old as, well, the grapefruit diet of the 1930s. But in today’s social media world, endless online wellness hacks, fad diets and nutrition misinformation are spreading faster than ever.
Why? Quick-fix regimens gain traction easily for many reasons. Our diets are deeply personal and, for some people, evoke a sense of devotion, almost like a religion.
Food choices are complex. When we go to a supermarket, what we put in our basket is influenced by many factors.
Some are biological, like our brain’s tendency to prefer high-calorie foods. Others are cultural, like the staples we grew up eating. And some are basic business strategy, like the store we shop at nudging our choices by placing certain products at eye level.
Nutrition and public health scientists, however, largely agree that when it comes to eating behaviour, the food environment is key.
The food environment refers to the complex systems that determine which types of food we have access to. It has a physical component, such as the grocery stores around our neighbourhood or workplace, but it also includes other important and highly effective factors like marketing.
In our 2023 meta-analysis, we found that exposure to food ads activated
brain regions involved in eating behaviour. When people, regardless of age, were exposed to food ads, they ate more food afterwards.
This evidence, alongside a vast body of research, highlights just how strongly our environment influences what we eat, and how much. It also raises an important question: if traditional media and marketing can shape our eating behaviours, how much stronger is that influence today in our infodemic-driven digital reality?
Health misinformation on TikTok, Instagram and the like, is nothing new. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more time at home, the perfect recipe for the sharing of faulty claims emerged. And the nutrition space was no exception.
Countless personalities on social media spread nutrition “advice” that should be avoided. Two examples that have persisted on social media are the carnivore diet — based solely on eating animal products — and the anti–seed oil movement, which blames seed oils for many diet-related diseases.
These controversial and thoroughly debunked recommendations have become so influential that they are even endorsed by the US Secretary of Health.
A 2022 study reviewed more than 60 articles on online nutrition content, and about half concluded that the information quality was low.agencies