Following healthy social media accounts inspire better dietary habits, study finds

25 Apr 2024 --- A new study by Aston University, UK, has found that young people can use social media to improve fruit and vegetable consumption. The central premise of the research found that people following healthy eating accounts for up to two weeks ate more fruit and vegetables and less junk food.

“This is only a pilot intervention study at the moment, but it’s quite an exciting suite of findings, as it suggests that even some minor tweaks to our social media accounts might lead to substantial improvements in diet at zero cost,” says Dr. Jason Thomas, Aston University, School of Psychology and co-author of the study.

“Our future work will examine whether such interventions actually do change our perceptions of what others are consuming, and also, whether these interventions produce effects that are sustained over time.”

Recently, a study by researchers from McGill University, Canada, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, found that partially substituting animal protein foods with plant protein increases life expectancy and decreases greenhouse gas emissions by about 25%. https://www.nutritioninsight.com/news/small-plant-based-changes-in-the-diet-can-reduce-the-carbon-footprint-by-25.html

Positive social norms
The researchers recruited 52 social media-using volunteers in their early 20s. They divided them into an intervention group, asked to follow healthy eating Instagram accounts, and a control group, asked to follow interior design accounts. The new accounts were followed in conjunction with the participants’ usual accounts.

The eating and drinking habits of the participants were recorded for the two-week duration of the experiment. The people following the healthy eating accounts ate more fruit and vegetables and less junk food. Even minor tweaks in the accounts resulted in substantial diet improvements. The findings were published in SageJournals.

Previous research has shown that positive social norms about fruit and vegetables increase individual consumption. The research team sought to investigate whether a positive representation of healthier food on social media would have the same effect. 

“Our previous research has demonstrated that social norms on social media may nudge food consumption, but this pilot demonstrates that this translates to the real world. Of course, we would like to now understand whether this can be replicated in a larger, community sample,” says Dr. Lily Hawkins, University of Exeter, UK, and lead author of the study.

Affiliation is key
In general, the participants following the healthy eating accounts ate an extra 1.4 portions of fruit and vegetables a day and 0.8 fewer energy-dense items 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 attempting to improve diets.

The researchers believe affiliation is a key component of the change in eating behavior. For example, the effect was more pronounced in participants who felt affiliated with other Instagram users.

The 2018 National Health Service Survey for England study showed that only 28% of the UK population consumed the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables daily. Low consumption of fruits and vegetables has been linked to heart disease, cancer and stroke. 

The researchers recommend exposing people to positive social norms, using posters in canteens encouraging vegetable consumption, or discouraging dangerous drinking levels in bars, which have been shown to work. 

Because social media is so prevalent, the researchers believe it is the ideal way to spread positive social norms around high fruit and vegetable consumption, especially among younger people. 

In addition, US-based researchers suggest that changing food labels from “vegan” or “plant-based” to “healthy” or “sustainable” may encourage people to eat more meals without dairy and meat. They note that “vegan” has negative connotations, but people are increasingly concerned about eating healthy and environmentally friendly food.

By Inga de Jong