Social media accounts about healthy eating influence dietary decisions

Social media accounts about healthy eating influence dietary decisions

Researchers at Aston University found that people who followed healthy eating accounts on social media for just two weeks ate more fruit and vegetables and less junk food.

Previous research has shown that positive social norms regarding fruits and vegetables increase individuals' consumption. The research team wanted to investigate whether positive portrayals of healthier foods on social media would have the same effect. The research was conducted by Dr. Lily Hawkins, whose doctoral thesis it was, supervised by Dr. Jason Thomas and Professor Claire Farrow in the Department of Psychology.

The researchers recruited 52 volunteers, all social media users with an average age of 22, and divided them into two groups. Volunteers in the first group, called the intervention group, were asked to follow healthy eating Instagram accounts in addition to their usual Instagram accounts. Volunteers in the second group, the so-called control group, were asked to follow reports about interior design. The experiment lasted two weeks and the volunteers recorded what they ate and drank during the period.

Overall, participants who followed the healthy eating reports ate 1.4 additional servings of fruits and vegetables per day and 0.8 fewer energy-dense foods such as high-calorie snacks and sugar-sweetened drinks per day. This is a significant improvement compared to previous educational and social media-based interventions aimed at improving nutrition.

Dr. Thomas and the team believe that belonging is a key component to changing eating behavior. For example, the effect was more pronounced among participants who felt connected to other Instagram users.

The 2018 NHS Health Survey for England study found that only 28% of the UK population consumed the recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables per day. Low consumption of such foods has been linked to heart disease, cancer and stroke. Therefore, finding ways to encourage higher consumption is crucial. Introducing people to positive social norms, using posters in cafeterias encouraging vegetable consumption, or in bars to discourage dangerous alcohol consumption have been shown to work. Social media has become so widespread that researchers believe it could be an ideal way to spread positive social norms around high fruit and vegetable consumption, especially among younger people.

This is just a pilot intervention study at the moment, but it's a pretty exciting set of results as they suggest that even some minor changes to our social media accounts could lead to significant improvements in diet, and completely free of charge! Our future work will examine whether such interventions actually change our perceptions of what others consume and whether these interventions also have lasting effects over time.”

Dr. Jason Thomas, Department of Psychology

Dr. Hawkins, who is now at the University of Exeter, said:

"Our previous research has shown that social norms on social media can influence food consumption, but this pilot shows that this can be transferred to the real world. Of course, we would now like to understand whether this can be replicated in a larger community sample." “

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