Exploring consumers' perceptions and biases on eating behaviors and sport nutrition: A twitter perspective

Abstract

Sports and endurance activities have become a growing practice as people adopt a more active lifestyle. However, most physically active Twitter users seem to have limited knowledge about nutritional needs or supplementation. This study aimed to mine Twitter data to provide insight into the consumers’ perceptions related to food and nutrient needs in physical activities. Using the search terms Food and Fitness, and Gym and Fitness, a total of 62,130 tweets were retrieved, filtered, and analyzed to obtain co-occurrence networks. Data showed that the primary goal for physically active users on Twitter was found to be muscle gain, primarily through bodybuilding exercises. Most of these users tend to follow either a vegan or ketogenic diet. In addition, the study highlighted disparities between people's understanding of various fitness clusters and the scientific literature. Generally, the knowledge level of physically active Twitter users matched well with the clusters related to diet and physical objectives. However, significant gaps were observed particularly in understanding macronutrient composition and the usage of supplements before workouts, where their knowledge deviated significantly from scientific consensus. Therefore, this study represents a cost-effective technique to identify the main sport activities and food categories used by physically active Twitter users, as well as to investigate the general levels of nutritional knowledge.