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Research Article Volume 16 Issue 1
Assessing the credibility and quality of Urdu Youtube videos on diet and type 2 diabetes
Iftikhar Alam, Ali Madi Almajwal, Falak Zeb, Qazi Noorul Wahab, Muhammad Muzaffar Ali Khan Khattak, Qamar Uddin Ahmed
Received: May 07, 2026 | Published: May 25, 2026
Citation: Alam I, Almajwal AM, Zeb F, et al. Assessing the credibility and quality of Urdu Youtube videos on diet and type 2 diabetes. Adv Obes Weight Manag Control. 2026;16(1):1-9. DOI: 10.15406/aowmc.2026.16.00418
Abstract
Background: High-quality and reliable online videos are an effective source of health education. No information is available on the general and educational quality of online YouTube videos in the Urdu language. Objectives: The main objective of this research was to assess the content and production values of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and nutrition videos available in Urdu on YouTube. Methods: Using a set of keywords, we searched for videos on YouTube on nutrition and diet in T2D. For the final analysis,144 videos in Urdu were considered. We used the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) score, the Global Quality Score (GQS), the DISCERN score, and the diabetic diet score (DDS) to assess the quality and reliability of the information presented in the videos. Results: the mean (std) video views were 28527.1 (4211.4), and the video power index was 24.2 (5.2). Academic and research institutions accounted for the largest share of contributors (19.4%), while ‘diabetes-specific information’ was the most popular type of uploaded content (44.4%). Video reliability was low in 22.2% of cases, educational quality was low in only 5% of cases, general quality was excellent in 6.9% of cases, and diabetic specific nutrition education quality was poor in the vast majority (73.6% of cases) based on the JAMA, GQS, DISCERN, and DDS scoring systems. For video messaging purposes, logical appeals were more prevalent than emotional appeals. In addition, the ‘prevention’ frame was the most common among the available video frames. Finally, comments on videos were mostly in the Urdu language, with almost equal prevalence of negative and positive comments. Conclusion: While nutrition-specific T2D videos have a substantial viewership, most of these suffer from low reliability and quality. There is an urgent need to work on how to access the most reliable videos on nutrition for diabetes from more reputable sources that guarantee standardization of video quality and take into account the simplification of information transmission in order to reach lay audiences.
Keywords: diabetes, diet and nutrition, youtube videos, urdu, patient education
©2026 Alam, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.
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