TikTokers are using AI to create meal plans that are quick, tailored and, unlike most nutrition guidance, free. But as one health writer finds, putting this viral trend to the test can leave you hungry for answers
Reporting on wellness in 2023, I tread a fine line between curiosity and cynicism, and never more so than during a TikTok scroll. While some trends generate an instant scoff (dry-scooping, anyone?), I’m open to discovering pearls of wisdom among the lip syncs and morning routines. But when, on an otherwise unremarkable morning scroll, I notice TikTokers extolling the benefits of asking AI to generate a personalised meal plan for them, my antennae start to twitch.
Maybe it was the warnings from artificial intelligence architects that the global impact of their creations could be as devastating as the Covid pandemic. Or perhaps it was anxiety that my profession will be rendered redundant. But deep down, I think I know what really prompted the cynical eyebrow raise. As I watch a woman gushing to her followers about the ‘endometriosis-friendly’, ‘hormone-balancing’ plan that the AI platform ChatGPT generated for her, it dawns on me that nutrition has found another silver bullet; and as I’ve learned from reporting on everything from carb cycling to celery juice cleanses, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. And yet, with a cost of living crisis that’s made it all too tempting to swerve the veg aisle in favour of the ‘reduced’ section, and deadlines eating into my cooking time, the idea of outsourcing the labour of meal planning is deeply enticing. So it’s with my bank account and work-life balance in mind that I load up OpenAI to ask: are ChatGPT-generated meal plans the future of nutrition?
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why the trend has taken off. The volume of nutrition advice on the internet is overwhelming, not to mention contradictory – something I learned when managing my IBS sent me into research holes a PhD student would be proud of. Then there’s the fact that seeing a dietitian on the NHS to optimise your health and functioning, as opposed to battling serious illness, is notoriously difficult. And with appointments with a private dietitian costing anything from £75 to hundreds of pounds, it’s an option that’s unaffordable for most.
A WORLD OF PLATE EXPECTATIONS
This is where ChatGPT enters the… chat. For the uninitiated, it’s an artificial intelligence chatbot that can answer any question by scouring the internet and distilling information. Since launching last November, it’s collected more than 100 million users, who’ve tasked it with everything from essays to emails. But its use on subjects that typically require a medical qualification has raised eyebrows (and heart rates). Back in April, Dr Stephen Hughes, a senior lecturer in medicine at A
