Research institute · Pew Research Center
What US influencer audiences actually hear about: fitness, weight loss, beauty
A third sub-piece of the Pew health-influencer study covers the topical mix consumers actually receive. Fitness, weight loss, and beauty/appearance dominate. Demographics shape which topics surface for which audiences, a brief that ignores those splits will mistarget half the audience.
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Key findings at a glance
- ~33% of US influencer audiences often hear about fitness, weight loss, and beauty/personal appearance, the three dominant topics in the wellness-influencer mix.
- 19% often hear about ALL THREE of fitness, weight loss, and beauty/appearance, these topics travel together for a fifth of the audience.
- 85% sometimes hear about topics OUTSIDE the seven surveyed, the wellness category is broader than even the questionnaire could capture.
- 51% of 18-29 year-olds often hear fitness content, under-30s get the heaviest fitness-content exposure of any age group.
- 39% of 18-29s say they often hear mental-health content from wellness influencers, the top of a steep age curve.
- 25% of 50-64s say they often hear mental-health content, 14pp behind the youngest band.
- 21% of 65+ say they often hear mental-health content, the bottom of a near-linear age decline.
- 44% of US women say they often hear beauty/appearance content from influencers, the clearest gender split in the dataset.
- 20% of US men say the same, women are more than twice as likely to hear beauty/appearance content.
What the report covers
Pew asked influencer audiences how often they hear about seven specific topics: fitness, weight loss, beauty and personal appearance, mental health and wellbeing, healthy eating, supplements and vitamins, and chronic conditions. For each topic, respondents said whether they hear about it often, sometimes, rarely, or never. The aggregate response shows the dominance of fitness, weight loss, and beauty as the three pillars, but the more useful finding sits underneath.
Demographic cuts within those headline numbers are where the operational signal lives. Fitness is heavily skewed to under-30s (51% often) and tapers steadily up the age curve. Mental health follows the same age-curve but inverted from how older audiences typically engage with health content, the 39% / 25% / 21% step-down across age bands is consistent with the broader picture that under-30s get more mental-health content via creators than any other channel. The gender split on beauty (44% women vs. 20% men, often) is the only finding where demographic difference more than doubles the rate.
Pew also notes that 85% of consumers say they sometimes hear about topics OUTSIDE the seven surveyed, meaning the wellness influencer space is broader than any questionnaire could capture. Periods, sleep, hormones, gut health, and burnout would all show up here.
What this means for UK marketers
Three things UK marketers should take from this, particularly anyone running creator partnerships in B2C health, wellness, fitness, supplements, beauty, or mental-health-adjacent categories.
Match the creator brief to what the audience already expects from the topic. If you're briefing a fitness-focused creator, the audience is largely under-30 (51% often); your brief should assume that audience. If you're briefing a beauty/appearance creator, the audience is heavily female (44% vs. 20%); craft creative accordingly. The opposite happens too often, UK brands brief creators based on the brand's assumed audience rather than the creator's actual audience-by-topic mix.
Mental-health content is a generational play, not a universal one. The 39%/25%/21% age curve is steep enough that mental-health-adjacent product categories (sleep aids, anxiety supplements, productivity tools, journaling apps) get materially different reach by creator depending on the creator's audience age. UK brands in this space should be filtering creator pitches by audience-age data first, topic relevance second. The Pew data also suggests that mental-health framing is now table-stakes for under-30 wellness creators, not a differentiator, your brief needs to find an angle within that, not declare "we'll be the mental health one".
The 85% "topics outside the seven" finding is your white-space opportunity. The categories most UK wellness brands fight for, fitness, weight loss, beauty, are saturated with creator content (a third of the audience hears each often). The categories that aren't in the top seven, sleep, gut health, hormones, burnout, women's cycle health, men's health beyond fitness, are where the audience appetite outpaces the creator supply. UK brands in those niches have a structurally easier job booking under-priced talent and standing out in the consumer's feed.
Final note for UK brands considering male-targeted beauty / personal-appearance content: the 20% rate among men means the audience is there, just smaller. The asymmetry is your opportunity, male grooming and skincare content has 40% the saturation of the female equivalent, which is a structurally easier creator-marketing economy.
How they got the data
Same Pew study as the parent piece, analysis of 12,800 social-media accounts belonging to 6,828 prominent US health and wellness influencers (each with a YouTube/Instagram/TikTok account >100,000 followers, posting health and wellness content in English aimed at a US audience), paired with two waves of Pew's American Trends Panel surveys (Wave 173 in June 2025, n=5,023; Wave 182 in October 2025, n=5,111).
The "topics" questions appear in the second wave. Pew asked respondents how often they hear about seven specific topics from health and wellness influencers, and probed for additional topics outside the questionnaire to capture the long tail of what wellness creators actually publish.
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From Pew Research Center · published 07/05/2026