The Instasham of influencers
Social media influencers can be powerful persuaders when it comes to our health. Their large reach and internet popularity can set food trends, influence our food culture, and even increase our interest in health and well-being. But with great power comes great responsibility, for health promoting influencers are not always trained and educated in nutrition, leading to them promoting misleading health claims that lack evidence and can even be dangerous…
So, what even is a health influencer?
Influencers are a type of micro-celebrity encapsulating wellness bloggers, models, reality TV stars, and actors who craftily intertwine personal and branded content together to generate an income. Crystal Abidin, a prominent global researcher in the field of internet celebrities, details how health influencer’s creative and highly engaging social media food content piques audience’s interest. This garners publicity to the point where they become famous to a niche group of foodies.
Influencers wield their fame over their health community who are primed for targeted advertising with advertorials, product promotions and brand endorsements. Giles explains how influencers use their self-built social, economic and cultural capital to set food and health trends, influencing their followers’ spending and consumption habits. While this is a great way to generate interest and inspire healthy eating habits among the general population, not all influencer promotions are created equal. Indeed, some can be dangerous.
What impact has this had on the nutrition industry?
The problem is that the ‘health’ products being promoted by influencers are not always safe and can be accompanied by health advice that lacks sound scientific evidence. Social media influencers who lack nutrition education and qualifications have popularised bizarre and sometimes dangerous dietary trends.
One example is the powdered green tea extracts on the market that contain the equivalent antioxidant levels of drinking 100 cups of green tea. Fat burning, boosted energy and super antioxidant levels are some of the benefits touted by social media influencers marketing these products. These influencers include bikini models, fitness coaches and supplement store owners with no nutrition credentials to their name.
Antioxidants are great for our health because they protect against oxidative stress and free radical damage, but their protective effects cease working when they reach toxic levels. They become too much of a good thing, increasing harmful oxidation and protecting cancer cells. BBC News reports that there have been ‘at least 80 cases of liver injury [young and old] linked to green tea supplements… around the world.’ Such patients using the green tea extract have been given days to live, requiring emergency liver transplants. Others have died.
A 2012 Cochrane systematic review assessing 78 randomised trials found that antioxidant supplements were in fact not conductive to health, but rather damaged it. As a Nutrition Science and Media Communications student, it is frustrating to see influencers lacking nutrition credentials spruik ‘health’ products that promote quick (and sometimes dangerous) fixes.
This problem highlights how the lines between nutrition professionals and amateurs have been blurred online, especially in an industry where the title ‘Nutritionist’ is not protected by law. Andrew Keen tells how health promoting influencers belittle the expertise and experience of professionals.
Looking forward
In response, nutrition professionals need to assert themselves more online to balance the availability of credible voices in this highly saturated market. It is crucial for evidence based practice Nutritionists to educate and engage with online audiences. Social media influencers should also use their micro-celebrity status for good, creating health communities and careers around the positive branding of quality products that protect health. Perhaps public health organisations would benefit from joint partnerships with influencers that promote products and nutrition information that is aligned with the evidence-based health recommendations from the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating and the Australian Dietary Guidelines.
