With more celebrities and influencers using their platforms to promote diets or health products, food trends have begun becoming impacted by that. According to Mindstream Media Group, 6 out of 10 teens trust and follow influencers and celebrities’ advice. Junior Sophie Parker said health and food trends could even be impacted by an influencer’s brand deals.

“Food trends can be influenced heavily by celebrities,” Parker said. “Celebrities advertise things like health gummies or vitamins or certain diets. They can make money from doing that, so their advice might be biased.”

Like Parker, history teacher Jennifer Ellery said certain food brands may be given greater attention due to influencers and celebrities promoting them.

“A lot of people are impressionable based on what they see on social media,” Ellery said. “Commercials and traditional ways of promoting things aren’t influential to people’s purchasing power anymore.”

Parker said there are many factors that could contribute to a celebrity’s influence relating to food and health trends.

“If it’s a really pretty celebrity, people might think if they eat how they eat, they’ll look like them,” Parker said. “That could be the motivation for eating like a celebrity or basing your lifestyle on theirs.”

Ellery said there should be caution involved with using celebrities and social media as a basis for food trends.

“If you see someone influential taking a certain supplement or doing a diet, you might be influenced to take those same actions,” Ellery said. “Remembering that what you see isn’t always real and making your own decisions when it comes to food and health is important.”