News
Online Friends And Eating Habits
Apparently, what we think our online friends are eating can influence how healthy our own diets are.
In a new study published in Appetite, Lily Hawkins and colleagues at Aston University asked 369 university students to fill in a survey about their perceptions of Facebook users’ food habits and preferences.
Next, a set of questions explored participants’ own eating styles: how able they feel to restrain themselves around food, how emotional their eating tends to be, and how often they engage in uncontrolled eating. They also filled in a food frequency questionnaire, which measured how often they ate various food types, and reported how many servings of fruit, vegetables and snacks they usually consumed.
The results showed that perceived norms amongst Facebook users did in fact predict how often participants ate fruit and vegetables. The more participants felt their Facebook friends were eating fruit and veg, the more they ate themselves. Meanwhile, participants’ consumption of unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks was influenced by how much they thought Facebook users should eat junk food.
In a new study published in Appetite, Lily Hawkins and colleagues at Aston University asked 369 university students to fill in a survey about their perceptions of Facebook users’ food habits and preferences.
Next, a set of questions explored participants’ own eating styles: how able they feel to restrain themselves around food, how emotional their eating tends to be, and how often they engage in uncontrolled eating. They also filled in a food frequency questionnaire, which measured how often they ate various food types, and reported how many servings of fruit, vegetables and snacks they usually consumed.
The results showed that perceived norms amongst Facebook users did in fact predict how often participants ate fruit and vegetables. The more participants felt their Facebook friends were eating fruit and veg, the more they ate themselves. Meanwhile, participants’ consumption of unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks was influenced by how much they thought Facebook users should eat junk food.