Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 21, 2023
Date Accepted: Apr 24, 2024
Mediterranean Diet information on TikTok and implications for digital health promotion research: a social media content analysis.
ABSTRACT
Background:
The Mediterranean Diet has been linked to reduced risk for several cardiometabolic diseases. The lack of a clear definition of the Mediterranean Diet in the scientific literature, and the documented proliferation of nutrition misinformation on the internet suggests potential for confusion among consumers seeking Mediterranean Diet information online.
Objective:
We conducted a social media content analysis of information about the Mediterranean Diet on the influential social media platform, TikTok, to examine public discourse about the diet and identify potential areas of misinformation. We then analyzed these findings in the context of health promotion to identify potential challenges and opportunities for the utilization of TikTok in promoting the Mediterranean Diet for healthy living.
Methods:
The first appearing 202 TikTok posts that resulted from a search of the hashtag #mediterraneandiet were downloaded and qualitatively examined. Post features and characteristics, poster information, and engagement metrics were extracted and synthesized across posts. Posts were categorized by those created by health professionals and those created by non-health professionals based on poster-reported credentials. In addition to descriptive statistics of the entire sample, we compared posts created by professionals and non -professionals for content using chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests.
Results:
: TikTok posts varied in content, but posts that were developed by health professionals versus non professionals were more likely to offer a definition of the Mediterranean Diet (15.1% vs. 2.1%, p=0.01), use scientific citations to support claims (24.5% vs. 0%, p<0.001), and discuss specific nutrients (31.1% vs. 6.3%, p<0.001) and diseases related to the diet (31.1% vs. 6.3%, p<0.001), compared to posts created by non-health professionals.
Conclusions:
Social media holds promise as a venue to promote the Mediterranean Diet, but the variability in information found in this study highlights the need to create clear definitions about the diet and its components when developing Mediterranean Diet interventions that utilize new media structures. Clinical Trial: NA
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