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Nutrition-Related Content on Instagram in the United States of America: Analytical Cross-Sectional Study

2022; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/foods11020239

2304-8158

Héctor José Tricás-Vidal, María Concepción Vidal-Peracho, María Orosia Lucha-López, César Hidalgo-García, Ana Carmen Lucha-López, Sofía Monti-Ballano, Jaime Corral-de Toro, Sergio Márquez-Gonzalvo, José Miguel Tricás-Moreno,

Digital Marketing and Social Media

The Internet is today the largest platform for food distribution, and there are concerns about the impact that digital marketing has in the field of nutrition by promoting non-evidence-based recommendations. The purpose of this study was to describe the user profile that draws on Instagram to follow nutrition-related content versus not, and to analyze the frequency and type of content of the information provided by nutritional influencers.A cross-sectional study involving randomly selected United States residents having an Instagram account was performed. Participants completed an anonymous online survey link.From 898 respondents, 78.7% were women, and 75.6% were Millennials. Scientific evidence present in the posts was 14.3%. Influencers promoted a product or a brand in more than 90% of posts. Women followed more nutrition-related content than men (p < 0.001). Millennials, followed by Generation-Z, followed more nutrition-related content (p < 0.001). There were no significant relationships between the following status of nutrition-related content with BMI, type of job, household income, education degree, or smoking habits.Women and Millennials followed more nutrition-related content. Scientific evidence was scarce and commercial interest in the network was evident. The vast majority of the posts were not based on scientific evidence and instead promoted a product/supplement.