There’s one social media ad I can’t seem to get away from. It’s a video montage of beautiful young people with great skin drinking some orange goop and promising a laundry list of its benefits, from stronger hair and nails to appetite suppression and a healthier immune system.  

The ad doesn’t cite any research backing these claims, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my appetite or my immune system. But maybe these people know something I don’t. 

“It’s very much tapping into our insecurities that we are not well enough. And it taps into our hope that we could be better,” said Christine Whelan, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

During the pandemic, lots of consumers have been more focused on their health and personal wellness. That’s translated to a boom in sales of vitamins, dietary supplements and apps to help us sleep better and be more mindful and maybe stick to a diet. Whelan said the wellness industry is definitely having a moment fueled by young consumers and social media. 

“The challenge is that we’d all like to say that we’re savvy consumers who understand that certain products may not live up to the hype that we’re seeing on our social media feeds,” Whelan said. 

But when the algorithm puts that supplement ad in front of you for the 20th time, “it gets harder and harder to resist.” Next thing you know, you’re spending $50 on a product with claimed health benefits that are untested, probably dubious and maybe dangerous. 

The Federal Trade Commission recently put the wellness industry on notice with the first major refresh to its guidance for marketing health products since 1998. 

“It’s long overdue. I’m glad they finally did it,” said Clair Jones, who heads up LoudBird Marketing. She works with lots of health-focused companies that sell things like CBD products, fitness and nutrition coaching, dietary supplements and tea cleanses. She said the FTC’s update clears up gray areas that some marketers have been exploiting for a while. 

“Traditionally within the marketing and advertising field, we’ve thought, ‘OK, as long as I’m saying may, could, might, that it kind of cancels out a lot of these claims that [companies] are making,” Jones said. 

Now, the FTC is cracking down on what it calls “vague qualifying terms” and says all health-related claims need to be backed by relevant, peer-reviewed scientific research. 

Jones said large, established companies that have been getting away with this stuff will adapt. Some will even fund research to support their marketing claims. For newer and smaller companies, backpedaling, developing new marketing strategies and paying consultants to help them comply with the new guidance will be expensive.  

“I do think that the barrier to entry has been raised a bit, but I also think that’s a good thing,” Jones said. “Because what we’re doing is really impacting people’s health.” 

Jones said one common form of promotion in the industry remains unregulated. 

When social media influencers are hired to promote a product, those paid ads are subject to the FTC’s rules. But when companies just send their products to influencers for free, they can say pretty much whatever they want in their technically unsolicited reviews.

It’s a dangerous loophole, said Whelan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, because popular influencers have a lot of, well, influence on their followers. 

“When a beautiful, fit person who we admire tells us to do something, human nature is that we want to do it. We want to be like them. And if they’re taking this supplement, you might try it too,” Whelan said. 

And maybe you think, well, these sparkly vitamins aren’t going to hurt me. According to Whelan, the harm is financial when consumers drop hundreds of dollars a year on untested products — money that could have been spent on things that we know improve our health, like vegetables or going to the doctor.

Additional reporting by Trina Mannino.