Observational analysis of general nutrition-related YouTube videos for content creator credentials, references, and sponsorships

YouTube has gained popularity as a social media platform providing free access to nutrition information. We aimed to assess the credentials of popular YouTube nutrition content creators, whether evidence was cited in their videos, and if they were financially incentivized through sponsorships. We sampled the 10 most-viewed videos of the top 40 nutrition-related YouTube channels (n=400 videos). We recorded the training credentials of the content creators along with the presence of scientific references and financial sponsorships, comparing differences between credentials. Of the videos sampled, 22.50% were by content creators with medical doctor (MD) or registered dietitian (RD) training, 42.00% cited references, and 17.75% had sponsorship. MDs (5.00%) had more videos containing references compared to non-MD content creators (mean proportion 1.00 versus 0.39, p<0.0001), with most references being specific (the source clearly provided) (1.00 versus 0.09, p<0.0001). Content creators with MDs/RDs/nutritionist credentials used more references (0.55 versus 0.22, p<0.0001 compared to those without. The mean proportion of sponsored videos by MDs/RDs was 0.10 compared to 0.23 for other content creators (p=0.09). These findings suggest that YouTube content creators’ credentials may be related to the likelihood that reference citations and financial conflicts of interest are present in nutrition-related videos.