Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 14, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 30, 2021
How does social media act as a persuasive platform to facilitate nutrition and health behaviour change in young adults?: A qualitative study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Globally, sub-optimal dietary choices are a leading cause of non-communicable diseases. Evidence for effective interventions to address these behaviours, particularly in young adults, is limited. Given the substantial time young adults spend using social media, there is interest in understanding the current and potential role of these platforms in shaping dietary behaviour.
Objective:
This study aimed to explore the influence of social media on young adult’s dietary behaviours.
Methods:
We recruited 234 young adults aged 18-24 years and living in Australia using market and social research panels. We applied a digital ethnography approach to collect data from online conversations in a series of forums, where participants responded to different health-themed questions relating to health behaviour change and persuasion on social media. We undertook a qualitative thematic analysis.
Results:
Participants described how social media influenced their decisions to change their health behaviours. Access to social support and health information through online communities were juxtaposed with exposure to highly persuasive fast-food advertising. Some participants expressed that exposure to online health-focussed content induced feelings of guilt about their behaviour, which was more prominent among females. Fast-food advertising was discussed as a contributor to poor health behaviours and was indicated as a major barrier to change.
Conclusions:
Young adults reported that social media is highly persuasive towards dietary behaviour through different pathways of social influence. This suggests that social norms online are an important aspect of changing young adult’s health behaviours. The commercialisation of social media also encouraged poor health behaviours, largely through fast-food advertising. Future social media-delivered dietary interventions should acknowledge the social and environmental factors challenging the ability of young adults to make individual health behaviour improvements. Care should also be taken to ensure that future interventions do not further elicit guilt in a way that contributes to poor mental health within this community.
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.