Who do you follow on social media? It would be naive not to acknowledge how who we follow can affect our daily habits. And according to a recent study, if your feed is filled with celebrity food posts, then your diet may be in trouble.
Celebrity Posts Are Bad For Your Diet
In a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open, Professor Bradley Turnwald and his colleagues set out to determine the nutritional quality of foods and beverages depicted by celebrities on social media platforms.
For the study, the researchers focused on Instagram because it is “image-driven, with more than 500 million daily active users, including 72 percent of teens in the US, and a large celebrity presence.”
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
For the study, the researchers analysed celebrity Instagram accounts. Their professions range from athletes to actors to “television personalities” and musicians. They collected data between May 2019 and March 2020 and evaluated a total of 5180 products. They also made sure to differentiate brand-sponsored posts from other posts..
To measure the nutritional value of the posts, the researchers used the Nutrient Profile Index (NPI). This NPI uses a score scale from 0 to 100m with 0 indicating the least healthy and 100 the healthiest. The scoring is based on sugar, sodium, energy, saturated fat, fiber, protein, and fruit and/or vegetable content. Any foods with a score below 64 and beverages with a score below 70 are considered “less healthy.”
What are celebs eating and posting?
Not the healthiest food it seems. According to the study’s findings, 87 percent of the celebrity accounts analyzed received an unhealthy rating score as their posts featured “less healthy” food or drinks.
Sweet bakery products were the most commonly depicted foods on the social media posts, and the researchers blamed the majority of the unhealthy scores on the high levels of sugar and saturated fat content in the foods posted.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DAILYMAIL
Image Credit/Daily Mail
In regards to the beverages, half of all beverages were alcoholic beverages, as were nearly two-thirds of those in sponsored posts.
What’s more, the researchers also found that the posts that featured unhealthy food and drink ended up drawing more engagement, and this of course creates an incentive for celebrities to post more of these items.
That said, the authors of the study did acknowledge that they did not compare the celebrities’ foods posts to that of regular Instagram users. As such they couldn’t really determine if the celebrity food posts were any unhealthier than those posted by the general public.
Are celebrities making our children fat?
“These results suggest that influential depictions of unhealthy food and beverage consumption on social media may be a sociocultural problem that extends beyond advertisements and sponsorships, reinforcing unhealthy consumption norms,” – Turnwald, 2022
Posts of alcoholic beverages and unhealthy foods may encourage the impressionable followers of celebrities to indulge in unhealthy dietary habits.
What’s more, social media has also greatly contributed to rising cases of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, so maybe the blame should be less on the famous people and more on the regulation of these apps?
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Should celebrities promote healthier foods?
“Celebrities are, of course, entitled to post foods and beverages as they wish on their personal social media.”
“However, given celebrities’ broad following, there is potential to shape their followers’ perceptions that healthy eating is normative and valued if celebrities commit to posting a healthier profile of foods and beverages.” Turnwald, 2022
Yes, celebrities are not nutritional experts. However, them posting healthy habits like healthy eating and exercising can definitely help encourage their fans to do the same.
That said, it is not their sole responsibility to help change the world’s eating habits. If you really want to take control of your health, then consult a doctor on how you can start.
Want to know more?
Granted, we should always take nutritional advice from famous people with a grain of salt. However, sometimes they get it right. Take Oprah Winfrey, for example. The talk show legend is using her Instagram page to encourage us to drink more water.
References
Turnwald, B. P., Anderson, K. G., Markus, H. R., & Crum, A. J. (2022). Nutritional Analysis of Foods and Beverages Posted in Social Media Accounts of Highly Followed Celebrities. JAMA network open, 5(1), e2143087. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.43087
