Exposure to social media food messages has an impact on eating habits of adolescents

Alpro Foundation Supported Research

Prof. Tim Smits and Dr Yara Qutteina, Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium

Adolescence is a critical time for eating behaviour habits when food choices made are less likely to be influenced by their parents. Unfortunately, the high prevalence of unhealthy dietary patterns seen among adolescents appears to continuous through to their adult years. Teenagers are more likely to opt for energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods options “non-core foods” over the recommended “core-foods” such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes etc.

A key driver to poor eating habits is the obesogenic environment we live in. Teenagers are bombarded with messages from multiple media channels encouraging the consumption of “non-core food” which ultimately promotes obesity.

This study investigated the impact of social media messages about food on adolescents’ eating preferences, behaviour and attitudes. Adolescents are particularly susceptible to the influence of social media posts from their peers and are regularly targeted and exposed to “non-core food” posts. “Non-core food” exposures often include posts of their peers drinking sugary soft drinks or praising fast-food. High exposure to such food images is highly influential at altering perceptions about which foods their peers typically consume and therefore which foods they should eating.

Study design: Flemish adolescents (N=1002) from 18 schools were asked to take screenshots of food images they encountered on their social media platforms for a week.

Key findings

As expected, analysis revealed that adolescents were most exposed to messages of “non-core”, less healthy foods, often shown in excessively large portion sizes. Self-reported exposure to “non-core food” messages on social media was significantly associated with increased sweet and fried food intake. The data further suggests that these findings can be partially explained by perceived food norms: the more adolescents saw “non-core food” on social media, the more they likely they were to belief that others often consume such foods.

Interestingly, exposure to the healthier “core food” messages does not seem to influence adolescents to think that others consume “core foods”, but it does increase the adolescents’ literacy about food. In hindsight, this lack of effect could be explained by the very different styles used to messaging about “non-core” and “core” foods.

The impact of social media on adolescents’ food attitudes and eating habits cannot be underestimated. If the volume of social media food messages was switched to favour “core foods”, there is potential to change adolescents’ perception and by so doing, help drive healthier eating habits in this age group.

For optimum impact, Professor Tim Smits recommends that health professionals and/or brands wishing to market healthy foods, should focus on social media messages that increase knowledge, attitude and skills that facilitate planning, choosing, preparing and consuming “core food”.

Conclusion

Social media is a powerful tool that can shape and alter adolescents’ food choices. This provides a novel and more personal way for all involved with healthier food promotion to use this platform to influence adolescents’ food choices towards “core foods”.

Read Prof. Smits' publication.