Use of TikTok by nutrition healthcare professionals: a pilot analysis of the Italian context

Abstract Aim Social Media (SM) has become a leading source for health information dissemination. TikTok, one of the newest SMs, became very popular in the last three years. Many healthcare professionals became content creators and science communicators on this SM, and one of the most popular topics is food and nutrition. The present study aims to analyze how nutrition professionals communicate through TikTok and assess the characteristics of their accounts and videos. Methods The study includes 53 Italian health professionals active on TikTok, selected through a search on this SM using nutrition-related keywords. Each tiktoker's characteristics of their last ten videos were described through an ad-hoc checklist. Multilevel multivariable linear regression models were performed to identify factors that could be associated with higher video popularity. Results A total of 67.7% of the tiktokers were female; 54% were under 30 years old. The median number of likes for each video was 300 (IQR 75–1070). The linguistic register was 'informal' in 70.7% of the videos. In 67.3%, the topic was 'diet-related' (videos relating to nutrition and nutritional choices). Multivariable multilevel linear regression models showed that 'diet-related' topics were associated with more likes (adj Coeff. 1111.62, p = 0.048) and comments (adj Coeff. 12.09, p = 0.036). Conclusions TikTok might be an impactful source for health promotion on food and nutrition topics. The popularity of diet-related videos underlines the potential of this SM for increasing knowledge and skills about healthy diets and good nutritional habits, especially for an audience of adolescents.