A new study of health and wellness influencers found that nearly as many say they are coaches or entrepreneurs as say they are health professionals.

The new data, by the Pew Research Center, found that 41% of health and wellness influencers described themselves as some sort of healthcare professional in their profiles, while 31% said they were coaches and 28% said they were entrepreneurs. (Many put themselves in more than one category.) Another 16% reported no credentials in their bios. The healthcare professional category was a broad one: It included doctors, nurses, dietitians, social workers, chiropractors and massage therapists, among other jobs.

Concern about health misinformation has been growing, with vaccination rates falling and extreme diets, such as the carnivore diet, increasing in popularity.

Social media has amplified this problem. When researchers in Australia examined Instagram posts about nutrition from popular influencers, for example, they found that about 45% contained inaccurate information such as the need to avoid certain food groups or take specific supplements, according to a study published in 2024 in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Posts from dietitians were more accurate, the study found.

Trust in the information people get from influencers is mixed, Pew research found. About 65% of those who get health and wellness information from influencers say they trust some of the information, while 10% said they trust all or most of it. Around a quarter of people said they trust not much or none.

“They see a lot of things that may or may not conflict with other things they’ve heard. They’re kind of struggling to process all of that,” said Aaron Smith , Pew’s director of data labs research. “There’s difficulties unpacking what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s best for me.”

About half of U.S. adults under age 50 say they get health and wellness information from podcasts and influencers on social media, Pew found. Among the most common topics audiences report hearing about are fitness, weight loss, mental health and supplements.

About two-thirds of people say they just happen upon health and wellness information from influencers, rather than actively look for it. “They’re just sort of seeing what the algorithm gives them,” said Smith.

Researchers analyzed the social-media accounts of more than 6,500 influencers who post about health and wellness topics. The influencers had at least one account with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, YouTube or TikTok.

The report also looked at people’s experiences engaging with health and wellness influencers and podcasts. That information was gleaned from two surveys conducted in 2025, each involving more than 5,000 U.S. adults. Pew is a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research group.

What can people do?

When assessing information from health and wellness influencers, look for their qualifications, says Emily Denniss , a public-health nutritionist and lecturer at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, who studies how food and nutrition are discussed online. She recommends that people looking for information about making dietary changes seek out posts by dietitians.

You may have to do some sleuthing, notes Brooke Nickel , a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney School of Public Health. Nickel has researched how social-media posts talk about some popular—and controversial—medical tests like full-body MRI scans and gut microbiome tests. Some people called themselves doctors but “that might just be their handle for whatever reason,” she said. “There’s a lot of people playing in this space that are not qualified to discuss what they’re discussing.”

Watch out for financial conflicts of interest, too, says Nickel. In about 70% of the posts about the medical tests that Nickel and colleagues analyzed in a 2025 study , the influencers had some financial interest in the products. Most posts were promotional and didn’t mention potential downsides of the tests like additional unnecessary tests and treatments, Nickel said.

“If someone’s trying to sell you something, consume that information with a bit of skepticism,” Denniss said.