TikTok as a Tool for Teenagers' Food Practices

Researchers: Chun-Han (Ariel) Wang, Stephen Tsung-Han Sher
Advisor: Christina Chung
‍

Teenagers use TikTok as a tool to support and shape their food practices, fast and slow.
‍
Overview: This research explores how teenagers interacted with food-related TikTok content and how doing so influenced their eating behavior and practices. We find that teenagers take inspiration from TikTok food content in different temporal stages, from immediately trying out new food items to long-term diets. We also identify potential design opportunities to support teenagers’ social use of TikTok food content in online and offline contexts.
‍
Methods: Surveys - Interviews
‍
Collaborators: Christina Chung (Advisor), Stephen Sher (Researcher)


Publications

“TikTok Made Me Do It”: Teenagers’ perception and use of food content on TikTok. 🔗

Chun-Han Wang, Stephen Tsung-Han Sher, Kelly Janek, Isabela Salman, Chia-Fang Chung. Interaction Design and Children (IDC’22). 

Medium Post 🔗

published with acm cscw

Motivation

In recent years, TikTok has reshaped teen food culture, offering endless videos on recipes, cooking hacks, and food trends. Beyond entertainment, these short videos influence how teens think about, prepare, and share food.
Our paper explores this by talking to teens about their engagement with TikTok food videos. We found that TikTok sparks more than quick inspiration—it encourages experimentation, social food sharing, and even shifts in healthy eating habits. These interactions highlight social media’s growing role in shaping everyday behaviors.

Method

We interviewed 15 teens in the United States between 14 to 19, who self-reported using TikTok and interacting with food content.

How do teens think about healthy eating and their eating habits?

Teens established their sense of healthy eating from their family, and most thought they ate healthy at home. When they reflected on what they would consider healthy, many mentioned home-cooked meals.
They were also influenced by their peers at school when it came to food practices.
Many teenagers treated TikTok as a window to explore more food choices and learn about healthy eating. For example, they learn about the divided plate method of everyday nutrition and emphasize on getting enough nutrition from all groups, or learn that avocados are healthy and developed a habit of incorporating them in their daily meals.

Teens don’t just watch TikTok food videos — they react to and act on them in ways that evolve over time

The interaction between social media and real-world behavior highlights the power of platforms like TikTok to inspire changes in lifestyle choices, especially around food and health.
As we move forward, educators, designers, and policymakers have an opportunity to harness this influence to promote healthier behaviors. By creating more mindful, supportive features within social media — like encouraging positive reflection, facilitating collaborative food planning, or offering gentle health tracking prompts — platforms can help teens build sustainable, healthy habits. We hope to take these insights and turn them into action, shaping social media into a tool for positive change in the way teens relate to food and health!
Contributions
examining teenagers' health behavioral changes and temporal-different actions from tiktok use

This study points out temporally different ways that teenagers' eating habits are inspired by short-formed TikTok, leading to the establishment of a behavioral model.

Design implications for social media design for teens supporting negotiation with family

By creating shared spaces for curating and organizing recipes, social media platforms like TikTok could support collective meal planning and healthy food choices.
Certain features (such as “favorites”) could be designed to serve as a mindful food tracking tool to help teens document and reflect on their food journey, turning saved videos into real-world healthy actions, fostering both personal and social engagement with food.