Investigation of the effect of social media use on packaged food consumption, irrational food beliefs and healthy nutrition in working individuals

The rapid spread of social media use offers easier access to nutritional information today. Social media keeps the nutritional information and habits of individuals up to date and it is known that news and advertisements about nutrition affect the food preferences of consumers. This study was planned to investigate the effects of social media use on nutrition and dietary habits of adults, and to evaluate packaged food consumption, irrational food beliefs and attitudes towards healthy nutrition. The study was conducted among 260 healthy adults (159 female, 101 male), who were active healthcare workers of Medisis Hospital between December 2019 and January 2019. Data on socio-demographic properties, anthropometric measurements, nutritional habits, packaged food consumption frequency and social media usage of the individuals participating in the study were obtained and evaluated. Irrational Nutritional Beliefs Scale (IFBS) was used to examine the individuals nutritional beliefs and eating behaviors. Moreover, in order to measure their attitudes towards healthy nutrition, the Attitude Scale for Healthy Nutrition (ASHN) was given to the participant. The majority of adults participating in the study (44.6%) were between the ages of 27-35, and the average BMI of female employees was 22.20 ± 3.70 kg/m2, and the average BMI of male employees was 24.91 ± 2.45 kg/m2. It has been found that employees preferred to consume packaged food, mostly (48.8%) at night, and generally (53.8%) because it was quickly available. It is determined that most of the employees had more than one social media account and spent 2-3 hours a day (60.4%) in these social media accounts. The median value of the irrational eating points of the participants was 2.44 and the median value of the rational eating points was 2.81. A statistically significant positive but weak correlation (r = 0.223, r = 0.186 and r = 0.195, respectively) was found between the waist circumference, hip circumference and body mass index (BMI) values of the study participants and their Irrational Eating scores (p <0.05). There was a statistically significant difference between the Rational Eating scores of the participants according to the number of social media accounts that they have (p˂0.05). It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference between the Irrational Eating size scores according to the participants' application of nutritional / diet recommendations on social media (p˂0.05). It was found that the difference between the scores of the Irrational Nutritional Beliefs Scale from the Irrational Eating and Rational Eating dimensions by the social media effect of the employees was statistically significant (p˂0.05). In the study, it was determined that the use of social media has an effect on nutrition. Dieticians have an important duty of teaching, informing and guiding, public and raising awareness on health nutrition via using social media. Keywords: Social Media, packaged food, irrational food belief, healthy nutrition