Abstract
In this paper, we study which health conceptualisations are promoted or supported by intermittent fasting, no-carb-no-sugar, and endomorph Diet YouTubers and how they relate to existing definitions of health. In order to openly understand how YouTubers present health concepts, we will study health conceptualisations in YouTube diet videos qualitatively, through the use of thematic analysis. We identify five main themes: weight management, prior dietary awareness, diet literacy, quality of life, and the satisfaction of functional needs. We find that YouTubers substitute the WHO’s pursuit of a complete state of well-being by an implicit, tacit version of new health concepts. The tacit form allows them to stay practical and to focus on real-world dietary concerns, such as answers to the simple question “what should I eat to stay healthy?”. Diet YouTubers do not, however, neatly position themselves within existing health conceptualisations and they offer views on health that move beyond “formal” conceptualisations, including self-inspection, timing, preparation and planning and context-design. Differing from the universal definitions of health, the Diet YouTubers we studied target specific audiences with their presentations of healthy eating.
Highlights
Social media and online video platforms have become crucial channels to access health-related information (Fergie et al, 2016; Heathcote et al, 2018), including the video-sharing platform YouTube
We identify five main themes: weight management, prior dietary awareness, diet literacy, quality of life (QoL), and the satisfaction of functional needs (SFN), of which two, QoL and SFN are only discussed by intermittent fasting (IF) and LC YouTubers
Nine YouTubers across three selected video sets claim that weight loss and muscle growth are personal goals which could be achieved by dietary change and appetite management, with fat loss mentioned
Summary
Social media and online video platforms have become crucial channels to access health-related information (Fergie et al, 2016; Heathcote et al, 2018), including the video-sharing platform YouTube. YouTube does not produce content itself but provides users means of distributing theirs and provides an online space for a participatory culture (Harmer 2010) and the popularity of the platform suggests a huge potential for knowledge distribution. YouTube videos are known for their entertainment value, but increasing amounts of professional information health-related topics are finding their way onto the platform (Fernandez-Llatas et al, 2017; Heathcote et al, 2018), provided by both professionals and amateur video-producers. The assessment of online health information (including but not limited to YouTube) is a fast-growing area of study (Sampson et al, 2013), yet in the light of the sheer amount of health communication online, communication via YouTube is understudied (Allgaier 2020). YouTube contains a worrying amount of (health) misinformation (Loeb et al, 2019; Madathil et al, 2015), and most studies target the quality of information offered–with much new research appearing on the quality of information on the Covid-19 pandemic and connected vaccination initiatives
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