Takeaway Points:

I’d argue that fitness misinformation on the internet is probably at the worst point it’s ever been.
It’s harder than ever to find good information - and I worry about what that means for the future of fitness, both as an industry and as a passion.

One of the most interesting studies to me was a study in 2012 called “Analysis of the accuracy of weight loss information search engine results on the internet”.

This study was simple - they searched various health and fitness related search terms on the internet, and analyzed the top results for accuracy of information as well as ease of understanding the information presented, comparing the sites up against current evidence-based standards.

The results were (at least for me, in a more naive time) surprising - basically, only about 5% of the sites reviewed scored greater than an 8/12 on the criteria. Additionally, blogs and medical, government, or university websites tended to have the highest scores, with media, social media, and business sites having lower ones.

This painted a picture of a very dismal state of information on the internet at the time. The vast majority of the information out there was poor, and there was little in the way of comprehensive info. I wouldn’t hesitate to argue that part of the reason that blogs scored so highly, was simply because they tended to be run by health and fitness professionals (like myself) looking to develop their own following and credibility with solid info.

What’s changed?

To be fair, I think that the problem of misinformation on the internet is inherent. Any time human beings get involved in basically anything, things get messy. The reality is that you’re talking about a massive communication system which contains something close to approximating the sum total of all current human knowledge, in some form or another - people will have different opinions and perspectives, different goals and intentions for sharing information, and these will often be at odds with each other.

And since the creation of the internet, misinformation has been baked into it. My wife used to have a job where she was required to write SEO spam for 12+ hours a day, pumping out garbage as quickly as possible so that websites could artificially improve their search rankings and increase their income accordingly. People have been looking for every trick in the book, and since the creation of the search engine as a method for finding information on the internet, have been looking for ways to abuse this system for their own benefit.

But I do think that things have probably worsened in recent years, in a way which I find somewhat disheartening.

Social Media

The growth of social media has really changed the way people interact with the internet, and with each other.

Social media subtly influences the way that we talk to each other. We think in 280 character tweets, or in 4 hour video essays or podcasts, or in 20 second short form video clips. Everyone is constantly vying for attention, so emphasis has to be placed on the headline or the first few seconds of the content in order to snag the consumer’s attention as quickly as possible. If this is done poorly, you’re accused of clickbait, but if it’s done correctly, the consumer never really notices that they only clicked on the video because of the inflammatory headline.

Discussion doesn’t happen in the same way. It’s not as easy to have a reasonable discussion with a faceless rando on the internet as it was to just sit down with a friend and talk through your differences. Often, social media is setup in such a way that real discussion can’t really happen at all - you can argue in the comments, but the creator may never read or respond to your comments. You can make response videos/articles, but if you don’t have the same size of a following, you may never be noticed or responded to.

This results in a kind of odd way of interacting - we’re all kind of shouting into the void as loudly as possible, talking slightly past each other, not really interacting directly.

Social media has also paradoxically fragmented information in some ways. Information is dispersed through influencers who may exist on one or many different kinds of social media sites. It’s harder to tell from a glance who’s an expert and who’s just some guy with six pack abs.

The State of AI

Then there’s AI - specifically, large language models (LLM’s). LLM’s are designed to rapidly produce plausible-seeming responses to input queries - effectively, an automated version of the SEO spam job my wife used to have.

In the initial hype of the release of ChatGPT and other LLM’s, it was believed that AI would mean that it actually was capable of assessing the value of the information it presented, and could be counted on to present trustworthy information. However, it quickly became clear that LLM’s are not capable of assessing the truth value of the data that they present, and instead will often lie, falsify, hallucinate, or simply make up information in order to try and meet the prompt it’s given. The computer cannot actually tell what’s true or not, so it just generates something “truthy” and hopes that this is what you want.

Obviously, I can’t overstate how much potential this has to do to the state of information on the internet, and I don’t doubt that it’s already in full swing. Influencers brag about using AI to rapidly generate complete garbage content, which is still capable of being semi-viral and thus gaining attention, clicks, and money as a result.

The spread of the use of AI, just guarantees the spread of more of the same. AI takes the existing content on the internet, grinds it down into unrecognizable slop, reformulates it, and spits it back out. Accordingly, AI cannot make “new” content, it can only remix existing content endlessly, and human beings will always need to keep making content in order for AI to learn and evolve. Trained on an internet which we already knew to present a lot of misinformation, it will simply rapidly accelerate the pace with which misinformation can be generated and spread.

What can we do?

I don’t know, I don’t have a solution.

Part of the problem is that the problem is inherent to the systems and technologies available to us. So long as social media is available to us, we will use it because that’s the tool that we have at hand, and since everyone else is using it, we need to use it to participate in modern life. The same is true of AI - some people will always be able to use it to get ahead, and so this makes it a necessity for many to use it in order to compete.

Short of a massive change in the technology and tools available to us, or a sudden and massive cultural shift in how people care about and share information, I doubt that there is anything individuals can really do to change the overall picture too much. This problem existed before social media and AI had reached this level of maturity, and I’m sure it will exist after they’re gone.

Personally, I look on the falling popularity of blogging with a kind of regret, but that doesn’t mean that I’m naive that it was going to stick around forever.

Likewise, for a while, there was a movement towards “evidence based” fitness - bloggers and coaches who were influenced by the latest research coming out, and tried to be more focused on the research over the old school broscience. Some of those people have since managed to successfully pivot to the modern internet environment, but I do think in general that the falling appeal and popularity of “evidence based” content (as much of a misnomer as it often was) probably says something negative about fitness on the internet as a whole.

Ultimately, the world keeps on turning, and there’s not much we can do about that except adapt. I hope that people are still genuinely interested in putting out good information, and I will certainly continue to do the best I can.

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About Adam Fisher

Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.

During that time he has coached thousands of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.

Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.

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Fitness Misinformation is the Worst It’s Been