ArticlePublic health nutrition2024
Diet culture on TikTok: a descriptive content analysis.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tick-Tock, the Time Has Come: Leveraging TikTok to Understand, Prevent, and Treat Eating Disorders.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Review
- How thin is too thin? Evidence from visual aftereffects in body size estimation.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Dietary Management After Ulcerative Colitis Surgery: A Thematic Analysis of TikTok Content.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Humor in Social Media Health Communication: A Systematic Review of Strategic Uses and Effects.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Quality and reliability of semaglutide content on different Chinese short video platforms: a study focusing on side effects.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Defining the guiding principles of weight-inclusive nutrition education.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Unqualified Advice and Product Promotions: Analysis of Health and Nutrition Content on Social Media Consumed by Young Adults.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Exploring the barriers and facilitators of nutrition and dietary intake among school-aged children in the urban low-income setting of Addis Ababa.Nutrition research and practice · 2025Article
- Tendencies of eating disordered behaviours in male content creators: a social media analysis.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- #WhatIEatinaDay: The Quality, Accuracy, and Engagement of Nutrition Content on TikTok.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Diet culture mindset and meat restriction: A mixed methods mediation analysis.The journal of climate change and healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate how dieting is portrayed on TikTok and the potential implications for public health considering the effect of diet culture on eating disorders amongst young people.
designA cross-sectional descriptive content analysis of 250 videos from the five most popular diet-related hashtags. A codebook was developed to analyse the content of the videos and collect the engagement for each video (likes, comments and shares).
settingTikTok website.
participantsThere were no participants in this study.
resultsMore than half of the videos portrayed 'body checking', a potentially harmful practice for body image. Of the videos that represented body image, almost half represented body image negatively. However, most videos promoted the idea of 'healthy eating', and only 6·4 % displayed disordered eating behaviours. Over half of the videos provided dietary advice, and of those videos, most content creators claimed to be experts (64 %). Claiming expertise was not significantly associated with engagement; however, the use of humour was significantly associated with engagement. Additionally, males were more likely than females to disclose their goals of the diet.
conclusionsOverall, it appears that TikTok is commonly used to share nutrition tips and personal experiences around dieting and eating in general, often employing humour as an effective technique. The popularity of the platform and rapid dissemination of information would be a useful tool for health professionals, especially those working with eating disorders, to utilise.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.