A shopper picks up a box of cereal. The front of the package says it is high in protein and made with whole grains. A food-scanning app gives it a mediocre score due to added sugar and an ingredient it flags as questionable. On social media, one creator calls it a great high-protein breakfast, while another warns followers to avoid it because it is ultra-processed.

So, is it healthy?

That question used to be answered primarily by nutrition labels, dietary guidance and health professionals. Now, shoppers have an expanding group of voices weighing in: government agencies, food brands, barcode-scanning apps, influencers, podcasts, algorithms and online wellness communities.

More information should make healthy choices easier.

Instead, it can sometimes leave consumers with several different answers to the same question.

The Government Has a Definition

Even the government's definition of “healthy” has changed.

In late 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized its first major update to the voluntary "healthy" nutrient content claim since the original criteria were established in the 1990s. Under the updated definition, qualifying foods generally must contain a certain amount of a recommended food group — such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy or protein foods — while staying within limits for saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.

The change reflects an important shift in nutrition science. Rather than judging foods primarily by individual nutrients such as total fat, the updated criteria place greater emphasis on food groups, dietary patterns and nutrients Americans are encouraged to limit. Foods including nuts, seeds, salmon, avocados and olive oil can now qualify, while some highly sweetened cereals and yogurts that met the previous criteria no longer do.

The FDA has also proposed a front-of-package Nutrition Info box that would identify saturated fat, sodium and added sugars as “Low,” “Med” or “High.” As of August 2026, the proposal has not been finalized, but front-of-package labeling remains one of the FDA's stated nutrition priorities.

There is a clear benefit to making nutrition information easier to find. Research on front-of-package labeling suggests that prominent, interpretive labels can help shoppers distinguish between products and may support healthier purchasing decisions.

Still, even an official definition has limits. A food that does not qualify for a “healthy” claim is not automatically an unhealthy food, just as a product that meets the criteria is not necessarily the best choice for every person, meal or eating pattern.

Then the App Entered the Aisle

For a growing number of shoppers, the Nutrition Facts panel is no longer the final stop.

It is the barcode.

Food-scanning apps can take information that once required several minutes of label reading and turn it into a number, letter grade or color within seconds. Yuka is one of the most visible examples. The app evaluates foods on a 100-point scale using nutritional quality, additives and organic certification; according to Yuka's published methodology, those factors account for 60%, 30% and 10% of the score, respectively.

Its influence is no longer small. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2026 that Yuka had nearly 23 million U.S. users and that food companies were increasingly paying attention to the ratings their products received.

There is good reason consumers like these tools. A series of experiments published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science found that using a food-scanner app could influence consumers toward healthier food choices.

The trade-off is that every scoring system must decide which characteristics matter most. An app may penalize additives heavily. A government label may focus on added sugar, sodium and saturated fat. A shopper managing diabetes may care most about carbohydrate content. Someone trying to increase fiber may evaluate the same product differently.

None of those questions is necessarily wrong.

They are simply answering different questions.

Social Media Has Its Own Rules

Then there is the version of “healthy” being defined online.

A food might be celebrated because it contains 20 grams of protein, criticized because it contains seed oil, praised because it is low in carbohydrates and dismissed because it is ultra-processed, all within the same scroll.

The influence of this information is significant. A 2026 national survey from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that 46% of respondents had acted on nutrition advice from social media influencers. Eight-in-10 said it was difficult to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to food and nutrition.

The issue is not that all social media nutrition content is inaccurate. Registered dietitians, physicians, researchers and other qualified professionals have also used these platforms to make nutrition science more accessible.

The challenge is that accuracy and popularity are measured very differently online.

Short, confident messages tend to be easier to communicate than nuance. “Never eat this” fits neatly into a 30-second video. Explaining how dose, frequency, overall dietary pattern, medical history, affordability and individual preference affect that recommendation takes considerably longer.

Research examining nutrition content on TikTok has found similar concerns. A 2025 analysis of popular “What I Eat in a Day” videos found that engagement did not necessarily reflect the accuracy of the nutrition information presented, raising particular concerns about how that information reaches younger users.

This helps explain why foods can move so quickly between hero and villain status. The definition of healthy online is not static; it follows the conversation.

Food Brands Are Part of the Conversation, Too

Manufacturers are not simply watching these changes. They are responding to them.

Protein claims have moved across nearly every department. “No artificial colors,” “no preservatives,” “low sugar,” “organic,” “simple ingredients,” and similar cues are becoming increasingly visible as shoppers pay closer attention to what is — and is not — in packaged food.

Consumer perceptions reinforce why those messages carry weight. In the 2025 IFIC Food & Health Survey, Americans identified attributes including protein, freshness, low sugar, minimal processing, fiber, low sodium and limited artificial ingredients as characteristics they associated with healthy food.

Third-party scoring systems are beginning to affect this process as well. The Wall Street Journal reported examples of manufacturers reviewing or changing formulations in response to the growing influence of Yuka and similar apps.

From a business perspective, responding to what shoppers value makes sense. But it can also create another layer of shorthand. A high-protein snack is not automatically nutritionally superior to one with less protein. “No artificial ingredients” tells us little about fiber or sodium. Organic certification does not provide a complete nutritional assessment. And decades of research on nutrition and health claims have demonstrated the potential for a health halo, in which a single positive claim can change how consumers perceive the product as a whole.

The Transparency Paradox

This leaves us with an interesting contradiction: shoppers have access to more food information than ever, but much of it is being compressed into increasingly simple judgments. It can come down to a score, a green checkmark, a red warning, a "clean” label, or a viral list of foods to avoid.

Simplicity is not inherently a problem. Grocery shopping already requires dozens of decisions, and few consumers have the time or desire to analyze every product as if they were conducting a nutrition research review.

In fact, recent IFIC research on nutrition labels found that most consumers check nutrition information while grocery shopping and that front-of-package information can influence their purchases.

The problem begins when a shortcut is treated as the whole answer.

Nutrition science largely evaluates diets and patterns over time. Individual products exist within those patterns. How often a food is eaten, how much is eaten, what it is paired with, what it replaces and what the individual eating it needs all matter.

Cost and access matter, too. A product that earns a better app score but costs substantially more may not be the more realistic choice for a household trying to stretch its grocery budget. Convenience may determine whether someone eats dinner at all. Cultural foods may not fit neatly into an algorithm developed around standardized packaged products.

A scoring system can tell a shopper something useful about a food without telling them everything they need to know about eating well.

What This Means for Retailers

Retailers are in a unique position because all of these definitions eventually meet in the store.

The opportunity is not necessarily to introduce another score. It may be to make the information shoppers already have easier to understand.

Help shoppers compare rather than simply classify. Digital filters and shelf messaging, such as “10+ grams of protein,” “good source of fiber,” or “lower sodium” give shoppers useful information while allowing them to decide which attributes matter to their own needs.
Pay attention to the conversations happening outside the store. Category managers do not have to endorse every food-rating app or social media trend to recognize its influence. If shoppers are scanning products, questioning particular ingredients or searching for certain claims, those behaviors can affect assortment, reformulation and purchase decisions.
Be careful with health halos. A single attribute can be valuable without becoming a verdict on the entire product. Retail messaging can highlight benefits without implying that one nutrient, ingredient or certification defines healthfulness.
Keep qualified nutrition professionals visible. The 2026 IFIC survey on trust in food and nutrition science found that about two-thirds of Americans express trust in food and nutrition science, while more than seven-in-10 Americans feel that recommendations about what to eat and drink are always changing. Retail dietitians can help bridge that gap by explaining what labels mean, why two systems may evaluate the same product differently and how individual foods fit into an overall eating pattern.

Healthy Isn't a Single Score

The question of who decides what is healthy no longer has a simple answer.

Government agencies establish nutrition standards. Researchers continue to refine the evidence. Brands respond to consumer demand. Apps create their own evaluation systems. Social media turns ingredients and nutrients into trends. And shoppers ultimately try to make sense of it all while standing in the grocery aisle.

Transparency is a positive direction. Consumers deserve to understand what is in their food and have tools that make that information easier to use. But transparency works best when it adds understanding rather than replacing context with another rigid definition of “good” or “bad.”

Maybe the next step in helping shoppers eat well is not to find a single perfect score for every food, but giving them a better understanding of what that score can and cannot tell them.