Navigating Nutrition Information in the Digital Era: How Tourism and Recreation Students Evaluate Online Dietary Advice?

Background/Objectives: The rapid expansion of digital platforms has transformed the way individuals access, interpret, and apply nutrition-related information in everyday life. Although online sources provide convenient access to dietary knowledge, they also contribute to the spread of simplified, conflicting, and potentially misleading messages. Young adults, including university students, increasingly rely on digital platforms for health-related information; however, little is known about how students from non-medical fields evaluate the credibility of online dietary advice. This qualitative study aimed to explore how tourism and recreation students perceive, interpret, and assess online nutrition information in the digital era. Materials and Methods: A qualitative research design was applied using a semi-structured focus group discussion with 17 tourism and recreation students (9 women and 8 men), aged 21–23 years. The group discussion focused on students’ experiences with online nutrition information, criteria used to evaluate credibility, the perceived influence of social media influencers and online communities, and the role of academic background in shaping critical evaluation skills. The collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and key themes. Results: Four main themes were identified. Participants perceived online nutrition information as highly accessible and influential but also associated it with information overload, contradictory recommendations, and simplified explanations of complex nutritional concepts. Students evaluated dietary advice using multiple criteria, including source expertise, consistency across information sources, realistic expectations, explanatory quality, and social feedback. Social media influencers were primarily viewed as sources of inspiration and motivation, whereas professional sources were considered more reliable for important health-related decisions. Students also indicated that their academic background in tourism and recreation supported critical thinking and broader awareness of healthy lifestyles, although they recognized the limits of their nutrition-related expertise. Conclusions: Tourism and recreation students actively navigate a complex digital environment by combining information from professional sources, social media, online communities, and personal experiences. The findings highlight the importance of strengthening digital nutrition literacy and critical evaluation skills among young adults. Integrating elements of digital health literacy into university education may support more informed interpretation of online dietary advice and improve resilience against nutrition misinformation.