Gastroporn on social media and its association with food choices and body mass index among youth

Abstract

The evident upsurge in food related social media accounts has led to a hedonistic indulgence in foods. The trend is however upsetting the food choices made by the youth due to this enormous social media influence. In view of the limited studies exploring the food based social media usage and its relation with food choices and body mass index among the youth at India, the present study observed such food based social media account usage and its relation with food choices, and Body mass index (BMI) among the youth. This cross sectional study was conducted among 18-24 years old youth (n=114) by administering a social media usage questionnaire, food frequency questionnaire along with assessment of anthropometric data of height(cm),weight (kgs) BMI .The data was statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi square test of association. It was observed that 78.9% of young adults engaged in food related social media surfing for an average of 2.8±0.3 hours per day .71.1% of the youth craved bakery-confectionary items and alcohol after visiting an image-based food account on social media. The number of hours spent on