ABSTRACT:

This piece focuses on the Wellness and Health community online and the lack of regulations put in place to identify credible sources of nutrition and professional advice. It follows the fundamental role Influencers play in Social Networks with main focus on the Instagram platform, as they build trusting relationships with followers who are attracted to a perceived perfect lifestyle online. This strength of trust and loyalty they have generated raises issue as it can lead to endangerment of their follower’s based on the promotion of personal concepts of diets and non-transparent brand collaboration of wellness products such as Sugar Bear Hair. In order to grow followings and stay relevant the strategy of adopting social media trends is largely followed in the Influencer space which can create an influx of misinformed content to users producing an echo chamber effect which could trigger certain individuals eating and mental health issues.

DISCUSSION:

The boom of the Wellness and Health industry has transitioned the way in which users consume and view information from a local professional space to a global online platform with infinite profiles, backgrounds, and experiences. This newfound form of learning and education is promoted by female Influencers who project a perfect life to the public in which female consumers are immerse in, this then generates a guilt affect due to imperfections and lack of achievements in their lives compared to the fake reality of highlighted perfect moments from Influencers. This therefore puts ordinary people in the position to be in awe of Influencers and bring forth trust and loyalty to all aspects of their online presences. This in relation to social change of open online opinion and advice for Wellness and Health in focus the Fitness industry can result in dangerous advice due to the lack of professionalism, attractive brand collaboration and the wide range of education formalities that are now available online. This misguided information can affect dietary and eating requirements as well as misdiagnosis of critical illnesses and the type of correct treatment for individuals. Due to the openness and trust Influencers create with their audience it can lead to serious and dangerous health advice due to their inexperience and lack of professionalism in which they recommend and promote certain advice to their large loyal following.

Influencers play a fundamental role in the health space on online platforms such as Instagram. The term influencer is used to describe an individual who has accumulated a large following on a social media platform in which they share their personal lives and lifestyles and engage with their followers both physically and digitally (Enke, 2019). This therefore makes Social Media Influencers appealing to brands due to their ability to create “personal, authentic, credible, and down to earth sources of information, with the significant benefit of a large network and thus audience for the brand” (De Virman, 2017 as cited in Harrigan et al. 2021). This attractiveness is seen in the Health and Wellness space in the form of promoting health related products, such as Fit Teas, Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins and Flat Tummy Shakes, these products have swarmed the Instagram marketing feed and space as these brands focus on Influencer sales in order to gain revenue yet are not Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved. This lack of insight towards the products are not promoted or mentioned by any Influencer and is extremely dangerous towards the health of their followers as wellness and herb supplements result in approximately 23,000 hospitalizations every year with over 2000 cases considered extremely dangerous in the United States (Belluz, 2015). This new transition to marketing through Influencer collaboration has generated a negative effect due to the lack of regulations put into place for brand endorsements on social media compared to traditional advertisements standards. This new form of Influencer collaboration marketing has socially changed the way in which individuals online are lured into purchase choice, exploiting the trust and relationships Influencers build with their audience in order to gain better analytics. This relates towards the transition of network individualism, the shift of connected physical groups of individuals towards an online form (Hampton and Wellman, 2018). As previously individuals would gain attraction to products through traditional marketing and gain trust of brands and products through recommendations from others in their life and community, such as friends, family and work colleagues. This however has changed the way in which consumers chose and trust brands with the digitalization of marketing and rise of Influencer culture as recommendations are now expressed through Influencers due to the trust they build with their followers. This effect of physical consumer groups to shift to online networks in consumer marketing and collaboration has decreased the transparency of brands due to the lack of regulation and awareness online through the digitalization of marketing tactics of Influencer advocation which in return leads to consumed being misguided and not informed of the true effects and ingredients in products such as Sugar Bear hair.

Although many health and wellness influencers intend to send out positive attitudes and advice towards their audience, many fail to reach the requirements of a registered or qualified nutritionist, advocating gluten free, dairy free and other specific dietary requirements. This can form the concept that if followers eat the same foods and replicate the same lifestyle as these Influencers, they can achieve this sought-after body putting Influencers in the position to become “trusting experts with authority because of their aesthetic alone” (Lofft 2020). This tactic of promoting a particular diet regime can fall under negative health advice as cutting out wholefood groups unless told by a professional can lead to nutrient deficiency in many followers (Byrne et al. 2017). This arises the problem of professional achievements and abilities, unlike a formal medical setting in which correct and appropriate education is enforced and compulsory the internet and in focus Instagram, an extremely large network that houses users from all forms of age, background, education, and purposes, therefore creates the incredibility of advice due to the lack of knowledge and experience gradable. In the case of Wellness and Health Influencers the term nutritionist is versatile as “all registered dietitians are nutritionist, but not all nutritionists are registered dietitians” (Jortberg and Fleming, 2014). This confusion of the term nutritionist can easily be misunderstood on online networks, and misleading for users to identify what forms of information is credible. Professional and qualified dietitians with following are on the network, yet their content may not be received by followers due to lack of visually appealing and aesthetic content and easily digestible content for followers (Lofft 2020). Which therefore leads to fitness Influencers dominating the nutrition circle based on aesthetics and related content. This therefore leads to the endangerment of users who follow through on advice promoted by Influencers.

Wellness and health Influencers produce content with the intent of positive effects on their followers to creating a health and wellness community creating network individualism aforementioned transitioning connected individuals towards online connection and communities. This however grows concern for negative triggers and eating disorders such as orthorexia nervosa, the obsession with eating healthy (Turner and Lefevre, 2017). This trigger and obsession can be related to network affordances as social networking sites are embedded in everyday lives of individuals (Hampton and Wellman, 2018), the constant connection to technology and social media content can create echo chambers of the health and wellness content in fluxing followers through trends with the aid of feed algorithms as this social media connection is part of everyday life. One of the most popular trends circulating the Instagram space is the keto diet which highlights many concerns to dietitians as the original creation of the diet was constructed to help epilepsy but has now been “hijacked by diet culture” as a form of weight loss (McPherson 2021). This is due to social media trends having large public and documented participation online which creates the perception that certain trends such as the Keto diet is a reliable and credible health regime to follow due to echo chamber of positive results and achievements from the diet and with occurring exposure it strengthens its credibility (Lofft 2020). This effect of echo chambers can result in triggers for individuals sensitive to health and eating disorders, this is due to the abundance of related content shared and received on their feed due to the Instagram algorithm. The way in which the algorithm works its tracks data usage of what users’ shop, browse, play, like and how they interact online, making decisions on their behalf and is displayed across their feed (Cotter 2019). Within this successful Influencers have learned to understand the algorithm in order to gain larger followings, a strategy of this is to produce trending content to stay within user’s feeds. This relates towards diet trends as multiple Influencers produce content of high trending topics such the keto diet it creates an influx to followers feeds therefore forming an echo chamber effect. With the lack of nutrition credibility and title as aforementioned it creates large misinformation such as the origins of the keto diet. This form of echo chambers and high trending content produced by Influences can trigger individuals eating habits and disordered due to all their content available is one particular form of eating. Turner and Lefevre (2017), study displayed the results that higher Instagram usage produced increased symptoms of orthorexia from the health and wellness community content on Instagram which was higher than other social media platforms.

Online networking sites have drastically changed the way in which individuals gain and receive information in the digital age. Traditionally individuals sought after health and nutrition advice from professional and medical institutes yet now with shift towards digitalization it has caused network individualism of gaining medical advice from physical professionals to transition to social networking sites and has caused information on medical topics to be spoken and discussed by anyone with and without satisfactory education degrees. This therefore is dangerous as Influencers have free range to advocate their own personal beliefs, which can result in the serious endangerment towards dedicated followers as all health advice and treatment is specific to individuals. This shift is due to the barrier between Influencer and follower is more connected and intimate, as Influencers provide a sense of trust with their audience by giving them an insight to their lives compared to traditional medical professionals such as doctors who do not open and discuss their personal life. This has caused the nature of the relationship to be more open and trusting than traditional medical professionals as Influencers breaking the barrier of professionalism and create trust through their relatability of their content. The growth and popularity of health and wellness influencers has advanced towards publicly promoting certain health advice and regimes in which their audience trust and believe due to this strong one sided relationship formed online. This has changed the way in which individuals view credible sources and they put forth trust over professional achievements.

Overall, the way in which individuals receive and gain information has shifted over the years in regard to health and nutrition, now transitioning towards online networks such as Instagram and exclusively through social media Influencers. This has arisen the problem of misinformation and credibility, this is seen through the lack of transparency of online brands such as Sugar bear hair which used Influencer marketing in means of gaining greater revenue yet failed to disclose and notify consumers of the non-approved FDA regulation the company received, both in which the company and Influencer advocates did not highlight to targeted consumers. Therefore, putting individuals at potential harm, this continues as the lack of regulation of information and advice promoted by influencers can lead to lack of dietary nutrition through popular fad diets such as keto made popular through online trends and algorithm feed organization. This strategy of promoting trending diets can lead to individuals falling into echo chamber effects and build confident in the misinformed advice promoted due to large participation by multiple influencers due to the trendiness of certain diet and fitness popularity and wanted follower growth. This therefore demonstrates how online networks and social change has digitalized the health and wellness space to produce negative effects and potential endangerment of loyal followers through the direct connection of social media influencers.

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