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Why Gym TikTok May Be Making Men Feel Bad About Their Bodies and Reach for Supplements
In A Nutshell
- Just three minutes of fitness or supplement TikToks left young men feeling less satisfied with their physical fitness than those who watched travel videos.
- Men who watched fitness TikToks reported lower satisfaction with their own diet compared to those who watched supplement content.
- Watching fitness or supplement TikToks increased men’s interest in using creatine, with the fitness group showing the strongest effect.
- For men with a high drive to be more muscular, supplement TikToks were linked to greater openness to steroid use, a finding researchers flagged as particularly concerning.
After just three minutes spent watching fitness-focused TikTok videos, young men in a new study felt measurably less satisfied with their own physical fitness, and their interest in the muscle-building supplement creatine ticked upward. Men who watched fitness TikToks also reported lower nutrition satisfaction than those who watched supplement content, suggesting workout videos may carry a particular sting when it comes to how men percieve their diets. Published in the journal Body Image, the study adds experimental weight to growing evidence that short-form videos flooding young men’s feeds may be quietly reshaping how they feel about their bodies.
Earlier research linked scrolling through idealized images of muscular men on platforms like Instagram to body dissatisfaction, but nearly all of those studies used still photographs. This experiment used real TikTok videos, the kind that fill the “For You” pages of millions of users daily, testing whether brief exposure could produce immediate shifts in how young men felt about fitness, nutrition, and muscle-building substances.
For men who already had a strong internal drive to be more muscular, the effects ran deeper, reaching into territory that borders on steroid consideration.
Fitness TikToks Lowered Men’s Satisfaction With Their Own Workouts
Researchers at Flinders University in South Australia recruited 282 men between the ages of 17 and 30. Most came through Prolific, an online research platform, with a smaller number recruited from the university itself. Participants were randomly split into three groups: one watched about three minutes of TikTok fitness content showing muscular men demonstrating workouts and giving exercise tips; another watched supplement-focused TikToks featuring similar muscular men discussing protein powder, creatine, and pre-workout products; and a third, the control group, watched travel TikToks featuring itineraries for countries like Japan, Spain, and Vietnam.
Before and after watching, every participant rated satisfaction with their body, nutrition, and fitness, along with how likely they were to use various muscle-building substances, including protein powder, creatine, pre-workout supplements, and anabolic steroids, drugs associated with serious health risks including high blood pressure, increased stroke risk, and heightened aggression.
Videos were selected through a pilot study in which nine men rated 70 TikToks on quality and typicality, ensuring comparable content across groups.
Three Minutes of Fitness Content Raised Creatine Interest
After watching, men who viewed either fitness or supplement TikToks reported feeling significantly less satisfied with their own physical fitness compared to those who watched travel videos. On nutrition satisfaction, the fitness group came in lower than the supplement group, and the authors concluded this pattern held relative to the travel group as well, though that particular gap was narrow enough that the researchers flagged it cautiously.
One of the more notable results involved creatine, a widely used supplement that boosts exercise capacity and promotes muscle gain. Men who watched fitness or supplement TikToks reported greater intentions to use creatine than those who watched travel content. The fitness group, not the supplement group, showed the strongest interest. The researchers suggest this may be because creatine boosts exercise performance, so men who had just watched inspiring workout content may have been especially motivated to find a way to perform better in their own workouts.
No significant differences emerged for body satisfaction on its own, or for intentions to use protein powder, pre-workout, or steroids in the overall sample.
Men Already Driven to Be More Muscular Showed Stronger Reactions
The study also examined whether a pre-existing desire to be more muscular changed how men responded. Among those with a high drive for muscularity, watching fitness TikToks led to notably lower nutrition satisfaction than watching supplement or travel content. Men with a low drive for muscularity showed no such difference.
The pattern reversed for steroid intentions. Among men with a high drive for muscularity, those who watched supplement TikToks reported significantly greater intentions to use steroids than those who watched fitness or travel content. Men with a low drive were unaffected. Prior research has found that men who use muscle-building supplements have significantly greater odds of progressing to steroid use within one to five years.
Social Comparison Drove Every Outcome Researchers Measured
Across every outcome the study measured, the link between watching the videos and feeling worse ran through one channel: men comparing their own bodies to the men on screen. Those who watched fitness or supplement TikToks reported significantly more of this comparison than those who watched travel content, and that increased comparison predicted lower satisfaction and higher supplement intentions. When the researchers included appearance comparison in their statistical models, it appeared to account for the link between the TikTok conditions and the outcomes.
Participants averaged about 400 minutes of physical activity per week, and more than half used TikTok daily, averaging about an hour on the platform. Nearly 40 percent had used muscle-building supplements in the previous four weeks.
All it took was three minutes of ordinary TikTok content to dent young men’s satisfaction with their fitness and nudge some toward considering a supplement. The study measured intentions rather than actual behavior, and a three-minute exposure isn’t months of scrolling. But the mechanism at work, comparing oneself to an idealized standard and coming up short, is as old as advertising itself.
Disclaimer: This article is based on a peer-reviewed study and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice. Readers should consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to diet, exercise, or supplement use.
Paper Notes
Limitations
The measure of body satisfaction produced lower-than-expected reliability scores, which may have reduced the ability to detect differences between groups. The sample was predominantly heterosexual and recruited primarily through an online research platform, which may limit how broadly the findings apply. The study measured intentions to use muscle-building substances rather than actual use, so increased interest in creatine or steroids after watching TikTok content may not translate directly into behavior change. The exposure period was approximately three minutes, which does not capture the cumulative effects of prolonged or repeated exposure over time. Drive for muscularity was measured after exposure to the content rather than before, though the researchers note it is generally considered a stable trait. The study was conducted online, meaning participants viewed content on personal devices in uncontrolled environments.
Funding and Disclosures
The authors reported that this research did not receive any specific grant funding from public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors declared no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work.
Publication Details
Title: The impact of fitness and supplement TikTok content on body, nutrition and fitness satisfaction, and intentions to use muscle-building substances in young men | Authors: Nepheli Beos, Eva Kemps, Ivanka Prichard | Affiliations: Flinders University, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work; Flinders Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing; Caring Futures Institute; Adelaide, South Australia | Journal: Body Image, Volume 57, 2026, Article 102082 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2026.102082 | Received: August 7, 2025; Accepted: March 24, 2026; Available online: March 29, 2026 | License: Open access under CC BY license
