Alarming number of social media influencers promoting dubious health information, researchers find

Two-thirds of social media fitness influencers were posting content that wasn’t credible, according to university researchers who have warned internet users to be discerning when viewing such posts.

University of South Australia Professor Carol Maher’s team analysed 15 of the most recent posts from each of the top 100 Instagram fitness accounts hoping to form a list of those who posted reliable information and could therefore be recommended.

But after screening the accounts, Maher said the researchers had to rule out 59 influencers who had posted unhealthy content.

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The unhealthy content included such things as unrealistic body images, quotes encouraging excessive attitudes towards diet and exercise, or they were suspected of manipulating their images.

Others, who purported to be fitness influencers, had less than 25 per cent of content relevant to health and wellbeing.

“It was surprising that almost two-thirds of influencers didn’t pass our fairly low threshold for having content that seemed reasonable,” Maher said.

“This is the world we live in now, where anyone can be posting content and people get popular for all sorts of reasons, and it’s not necessarily that they’re doing a great job of the thing they’re popular for.

“It really would suggest that people need to be selective with what they follow.”

Lead researcher Dr Rachel Curtis stressed unrealistic body images on social media contributed to low self-esteem, which was harmful to people’s wellbeing.

“Many of the accounts promoted unhealthy or unre­alistic body shapes — with a strong focus on ultra-fit, slim physiques — implying that only thin and toned bodies are considered healthy and beautiful,” Curtis said.

“Such a focus on appearance can drive outward-based reasons to exercise, and this can lead to body image issues and concerns.”

About a quarter of the influencers were presenting hyper-sexualised content that was objectifying or had excessive nudity, the study found.

“A crop top in a gym might be showing the same amount of skin as a (person in) a bra and knickers posed on a sofa, but they’re sending quite different messages,” Maher said.

The researchers were eventually left with just 39 accounts for stage two of screening, and found only half of those influencers had a fitness-related qualification.

And none of the remaining finalists had a diverse background.

“We just found they were mostly white woman from the United States, so there’s not much variation,” Maher said.

“So we didn’t think we were left with a great list to be able to put forward.”

Maher said while they could not curate a list of reliable accounts, as intended, they had developed an evidence-based audit tool that could help other people identify credible accounts.