Abstract
Social media platforms have become part of many people’s lives. Users are spending more and more time on these platforms, creating an active and passive digital footprint through their interaction. This footprint has high research potential in many research areas because understanding people’s communication on social media is essential in understanding their values, attitudes, experiences and behaviors. Researchers found that the use of social networking sites impacts adolescents’ eating behavior. If we define adolescents as individuals between ages 10 and 24 (WHO’s definition), 76% of USA young people at age 18–24 use Instagram, so the Instagram social network analysis is important for understanding young people’s expressions in the context of healthy food. This study aims to identify the main topic associated with healthy food on the Instagram social network via hashtag and community analysis based on 2,045,653 messages created by 427,936 individual users. The results show that users most associate Healthy food with healthy lifestyle, fitness, weight loss and diet. In terms of food, these are foods that are Vegan, Homemade, Clean and Plant-based. Given that young people change their behavior in relation to people’s behavior on social networks, it is possible to use this data to predict their future association with healthy food characteristics.
Highlights
This study aims to identify the main topic associated with healthy food on the Instagram social network based on hashtag and community analysis
This study identifies how is healthy food presented on the Instagram social network
Based on an analysis of the Instagram social network, it is possible to say that users most associate healthy food with healthy lifestyle
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Social media use is an inherent element of the lives of many people’s lives, for adolescents [1,2,3]. Adolescents spend 3.2 h per day on social media [4]. Social networks have become part of their lives, mainly thanks to the ability to create and share their creativity [5], experience and opinion [6], personal attitudes [7] and value [8]. Social media have a significant influence on adolescents in many areas of everyday life
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