Why social media health influencers must now disclose their qualifications?

With the Department of Consumer Affairs swooping in on health and wellness influencers with tighter regulations, doctors and experts fighting problematic content and social media quacks say the move is the need of the hour

There is a lot of crazy content out there,” says Dr Anuj S Tiwari, a general physician, who consults with Juhu’s RN Cooper Hospital. Tiwari was among those who used social media to counter the mass volume of fake messages guaranteeing a cure during Mumbai’s COVID-19 crisis. “Self-proclaimed doctors, who might have done only six-month courses and even those who have an MBBS degree, but who are not practising at all, are earning a living by making quick reels on Instagram and one-minute videos,” says Tiwari. His anger is justified, considering the power that health influencers wield over popular discourse of health and wellness.

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The influencer marketing industry in India was valued at over Rs 12 billion in 2022, and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25 per cent over the next five years. Health influencing, which occupies a considerable space in this segment, has so far been flourishing with influencers like Mrunal Thakur, Sapna Vyas and Yasmin Karachiwala, among others, leading the race. 

Shruti Chopra says “taping” helps with lymphatic drainage

But there’s also an avalanche of non-verified information that is being accessed by viewers, and this is of great concern, worries Tiwari.  

The Center’s recent decision to regulate health influencing, he feels, comes as a ray of hope. According to reports, the Department of Consumer Affairs is set to introduce a fresh set of guidelines that will make it mandatory for health influencers to disclose their qualifications for dispensing health and wellness tips. 
In a meeting with social media influencers held in Mumbai earlier in the week, the Department issued a set of guidelines, titled Endorsement Know-hows! While the guidelines haven’t been made public as they are still under negotiation, the most important update is that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs will be enforcing a penalty of up to R10 lakh for repeat offenders. Viraj Seth from Monk Entertainment, who was present at the meeting, says, “They [the department] said the amount will be decided on a case to case basis, if both the influencer and the company whose product is being endorsed do not make it apparent that it’s a paid promotion. The penalty will be enforced on anyone who is giving out medical advice, but has not put up their qualification.”

Health influencers who have expertise in a wide-range of subjects ranging from fitness to nutrition have unanimously welcomed the decision.

Dr Renita Rajan, Anuj Tiwari, Aditi Prabhu, Karthik Srinivasan and Ayush Guha

Dr Renita Rajan, a leading skin and hair influencer with 155k followers on Instagram, points out that there are currently two main groups of people providing health and wellness advice on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. “One category is not actually an expert, but has tried something and found it useful for them, like a beauty blogger,” she says, adding, “The second group is where they claim to have knowledge, which may only be acquired after professional learning.” According to her, simply displaying affiliations like works with/works at/paid promotion/ barter deal/ad etc are adequate steps by the first group to protect the consumer. It’s important that the second group puts out actual qualifications, because they claim to be experts, and their advice is often considered the last word. “Declaring the affiliation truthfully might actually work in favour of the influencer than against,” she feels.   

Sapna Vyas, a health coach, who has over 1.5 million followers, says that the decision will also “help authenticate those who are serious about health and wellness”. “It took me over five years to understand fitness,” says Vyas, who herself is an ‘A’ certified trainer from the American Council on Exercise. She was also named as the Forbes Top Content Creator in 2022. “So if the government actually asks who is qualified, it will only help authenticate those of us who have done a lot of homework before giving any advice to our followers online,” says the Lower Parel resident. 

“But who decides if our qualification is authentic?,” asks Aditi Prabhu, a Borivli-based clinical nutritionist, who has completed her Masters in Dietetics and Food Service Management from Nirmala Niketan in Marine Lines. She is currently juggling creating daily content for social media alongside her day job. “And it’s not easy,” she admits. “For the longest time, I wasn’t taken seriously. People thought I was a quack. I had to change the way I worded my qualifications on my social media bio.” Prabhu said it is only when she replaced the word “dietician” with “nutritionist” in her bio did she start getting followers. Her major issue is with the number of certifications being doled out by various health institutions across Mumbai, many of which are not university recognised. “The government’s move is great, but what we also need is a regulatory body that scans through these certifications, and verifies them.” 

Dr Chytra V Anand, a cosmetic dermatologist who has 189k followers, suggests that the government validate these certificates, through a separate portal. “It will take time but can be done.”  

Karthik Srinivasan, a communications strategy expert, specialising in branding, marketing, content, social media, and corporate training, feels that while the legalities might be clear, the implementation might not be so due to the viral nature of social media. “I don’t foresee any legal challenge on this front. [But] executing this rule may be a massive challenge, though. It may need people/viewers complaining, government taking a look at the complaints, and taking action by which time, content may have gone truly viral multiple times,” he says.

Many health influencers also use social media to talk about living with a condition, and are not necessarily experts. Like Shruti Chopra, 39, who has been spreading awareness about endometriosis, a condition that she was diagnosed with at the age of 11. “What kind of certification will a person like me show?” she asks wistfully. "I have lived with chronic conditions for 31 years and I am on the patient advisory council of a clinical research organisation that conducts clinical trials. So, the government cannot negate a patient’s experience, and cannot penalise or ask us for qualification because we are only bringing awareness,” she says, adding, “I always clarify that this is ‘my’ experience and that women with this condition must visit a doctor, but at least we are having a conversation about something that not many women know about.”

The vast pool of quacks is what has prevented Ayush Guha, the Business Head of the influencer agency Hypp, from representing health influencers. “There are way too many so-called mental health influencers or experts and more often than none, without any academic backing or authenticity of qualification, which is why we tend to not take them on as clients. It would help if there are some guidelines, but the waters are quite murky in this area.”

What is also needed is safeguarding the rights of influencers who are out there to lay bare the facts about certain conditions and products. Only recently, nutritionist Revant Himatsingka who goes by the handle @foodpharmer on Instagram, shared a Reel of alleged wrong advertising by the makers of a health food drink. In the Reel, the influencer called out the drink for claiming to have health benefits like “immunity boosters”. 

The video received more than 12 million views and was downloaded, forwarded and shared on multiple social media platforms. But on April 14, the influencer pulled down the video, saying he had been slapped with a legal notice. “I have no lawyers, no PR team, no ad budget,” he said last week, after receiving another legal notice, “...but I do have courage.”

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