The Effect of Social Media Influencers on

The Effect of Social Media Influencers on the Diet Choices of People Aged 18-30

By Stephanie Petrillo

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Heidi Gonzalez, College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Article Abstract:

Influencers on social media are prevalent in the lives of young people today and impact their decisions. The purpose of this research was to better understand the effect that social media influencers have on the diet choices of people aged 18-30. Health professionals must understand the impact of influencers on the diet choices of young adults, as nearly two-thirds are overweight in the United States. The researchers in this study created a Qualtrics survey and sent it to Valdosta State University’s student body after IRB approval. According to the results, the primary reason for using social media was to connect with others. The majority of participants stated they used social media 4-6 hours/ day. The main reason people aged 18-30 years viewed health posts from social media influencers were for weight loss, exercise, and to obtain healthier food recipes. The results of our study indicate that family is a significant reason for the diet choices of our participants. Almost one third of the participants stated they changed their diet at least once within the past year because of a social media influencer. Therefore, health professionals must consider social media as an essential platform to engage with young adults to promote healthy behaviors.

Introduction

Young people today have multiple options for digital entertainment on social media. The stars on social media, also known as influencers, have become extremely popular and they impact the decision making of their followers. Blogs, Vlogs, Instagram, and YouTube accounts are the favorite channels for social media influencers and influencer marketing (Balaban & Mustatea, 2019). Social media influencers are defined as online personalities with a large number of followers, across one or multiple platforms who serve as content creators, opinion leaders, and entrepreneurs (Balaban & Mustatea, 2019). As media idols, influencers can function as role models for young people and often appear as ordinary people making them more relatable to their followers. Some influencers have found tremendous fame and wealth from their exceedingly large number of followers. For example, Ryan’s World features an 8-year-old boy named Ryan who reviews branded toys. Ryan had over 18 million followers and earned $22 million in 2018. The success of an influencer is strongly connected to their image, their connection to the audience, and their authenticity (van Eldik et al., 2019). Due to their perceived credibility, the messages they spread are perceived as authentic, rather than as branding and advertising. Therefore, social media influencers have become an important asset for advertisers, as they manage to address their target audience with product recommendations in highly pertinent and entertaining content (De Veirman et al., 2019). In fact, digital advertising reached $900 million dollars in 2018 and is expected to only increase in the future. Influencer marketing is a rapid growing area that has yet to evolve, however, influencers need to be aware of the importance of trustworthiness for building long-lasting relationships with their followers (Balaban & Mustatea, 2019). It is important for health professionals to understand the impact of influencer marketing on the diet choices of young people. Over two-thirds (70.2%) of people 20 years of age and older are overweight in the United States. Celebrity endorsements and social media influencers who promote energy-dense foods and beverages may contribute to poor dietary choices (Zhou et

al., 2019). In fact, young adults are among the largest consumers of sugar-sweetened beverages and fast food, and they consume the lowest levels of vegetables and fruits (Rounsefell et al., 2019). According to Rounsefell, et al. (2019), frequent social media exposure to image-related content (viewing idyllic images of celebrities or peers) increases the risk of young adults having a negative impact on their body image and food choices. Searching for health influencers is challenging on social media because the health category is a broad one. People have a wide variety of ideas about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. Some of the health influencers’ content on social media derives from physicians, fitness gurus, self-taught vegan recipe creators, and those who connect with people who want to lose weight. One of the most popular health influencers on Instagram is Diane Sanfilippo. She is a certified nutrition consultant with two New York Times bestsellers (“Practical Paleo” and “Keto Quick Start”), has 118,000 followers, and sells her own Balanced Bites lines of spices and frozen meals (IZEA, 2020). Due to the growing use of social media, influencers are more prevalent in the lifestyles of young adults, which could affect whether they tend make healthy or unhealthy diet choices. This study provides insights into the importance of social media influencers as a source of the diet choices of young people. This population was chosen because there is evidence that young people use mobile platforms more than any other population (Balaban & Mustatea, 2019) and are more influenced by social media than any other population (De Veirman et al., 2019). The group of young users aged 16-24 were the most active, followed by 25-34 yearolds (Balaban & Mustatea, 2019). The purpose of this research was to examine each of the following research questions:

1. What is the extent or scope of social media influencers on the diet choices of people aged 18-30 years of age? 2. How likely is a person aged 18-30 years willing to change their diet based on social media influencers? 3. What influences the diet choices of people aged 18-30?

Data Collection

There is little existing research about the specific influential factors of diet choices among this population. To complete this study, the researchers created an online Qualtrics survey to gather data about influencers on diet choices in people aged 18-30. The survey included questions regarding social media use, credibility of social media influencers, and whether diet choices were affected by social media influencers. In addition, the survey posed questions regarding social, behavioral, and other determiners of diet choices among this population to adequately determine if there was a significant effect of social media influencers on diet choices in this population. After IRB approval, the quantitative data was collected by distributing the survey via email to the student body at Valdosta State University. The researchers obtained consent from participants and offered a $5 incentive to students for participating in the research. The researchers accepted 200 participants and reached their participant cap in less than 70 minutes of the survey going live. The researchers kept the survey data and incentive information separate to maintain anonymity. The participants were instructed at the end of the survey to email the faculty researcher to receive their incentive. The researchers replied to every participant’s email with VSU’s Confidential Research Payment Receipt form via Docusign to collect signatures and payment information (participant Cash app tag or Venmo code). Each participant who took the survey and emailed the faculty member by the expressed due date received their incentive from the researchers.

Data Analysis and Findings

The quantitative data were analyzed by exporting our Qualtrics survey data into SPSS. A level of significance of 0.05 was used in the test of difference. A survey among 227 Valdosta State University students aged 18-30 (n = 227; M = 2.18; SD = 0.42), including 161 females; 65 males; and 2 who preferred not to select gender was conducted. The two most prevalent identified races of participants included 53.22% as African-Americans and 34.33% as Caucasian-Americans. To answer RQ 1 (What is the extent or scope of social media influencers on the diet choices of people 18-30 years of age?) we asked participants which (if any) social media networks/ influencers were used for health/diet advice. Instagram (21.14%), YouTube (19.57%), and Pinterest (14.29%) were among the most popular platforms with 9.98% of participants stating they do not use social media sites or influencers for health/diet advice (see Appendix A – Table 1). We used the t-test to compare the difference in the frequency of social media use between 18-24 years (M = 4.70, SD = .779) versus 24-30 years (M = 4.73, SD = .732) and found no significant difference between the groups t(217) = -.190, p = .850 > .05. (See Table 1). The main reasons for the participants using social media sites was to connect with others (34%), personal networking reasons (26.75%), and for new ideas (23.4% - diets, recipes, beauty tips) (see Table 2). The participants most expressed time spent on social media sites each day was 4-6 hours (33.2%) and 1-2 hours (31.8%). However, the most common reasons the participants viewed health posts from influencers were weight loss/healthy diets (35.1%), food recipes (31.7%), and exercise (30.3%).

Table 1. Most popular platform used for health advice

Table 2. Most common reasons for using social media

To answer RQ 2 (How likely is a person aged 18-30 years willing to change their diet based on social media influencers?) we asked participants several questions using a Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The findings included: 63.5% participants trust a medical professional over an influencer for health advice, the majority of participants agreed that they are more likely to try different diets if the influencer is attractive, a famous celebrity, or fit athlete, if it helped them save money, or if it taught them to cook new foods. The 2 most common reasons cited for the participants being willing

to change their diet based on social media influencers were if participants perceived they needed to be healthier or if the influencer had a large number of followers who were successful (great reviews or before/after pictures). The majority of the participants disagreed (31.7%) that they had changed their diets in the past 6-12 months because of social media influencers. In fact, 49.5% of the participants stated they had never changed their diets based on social media influencers, while 31.2% stated they had changed their diets once in the past 6 months based on social media influencers (see Appendix A – Table 3). We used the t-test to compare the difference in the frequency of diet change because of social media between the group 18-24 years (M = 1.79, SD = .821) and the group 24-30 years (M = 1.73, SD = .769), and we found no difference between the groups t(217) = .419, p = .675 > .05.

Table 3. Likelihood of participants changing their diet based on influencers

To answer RQ3 (What influences the diet choices of people aged 18-30?) we asked the participants several questions about their diets. The most popular diets among the participants were omnivore (42%), a normal, balanced diet recommended by the AHA (28%), and a no pork diet (8.1%). The main reason for the participants citing their diet choices included it being the diet they grew up eating (44.7%), the majority of their

friends/family follow this diet (19.7%), they have good results eating this particular diet (12%), and the impact on their budget (10.3%) (see Table 4). We used the chi-square test to compare the difference in the reason for choosing diets between 18-24 years and 24-30 years and found no significant difference between the two groups. X2 (8, N = 219) = 6.718, p = .567 > .05.

Table 4. What influences the diet choices of people aged 18-30?

Discussion

The researchers expected to better understand how influencers on social media affect the diet choices of people ages 18-30. Young adults are reported as having the unhealthiest diets regarding the consumption of fast food and sugar-sweetened beverages (Rounsefell et al., 2019). A healthy diet is defined as eating 5 portions of fruits and vegetables every day (Chudasamaet al., 2020). A meta-analysis found that a high intake of fruits and vegetables not only increased life expectancy, but significantly reduced the risk of heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (Chudasama, et al., 2020). Therefore, young adulthood is an important time to learn healthy diet choices to prevent long-term health implications such as heart disease or diabetes mellitus. Our findings were consistent with the current research in that 42% of our participants reported eating an omnivore

diet, which includes both plant and animal foods. The results of our study indicate that family is a significant reason for the diet choices of our participants. Approximately 65% of the participants stated they chose their diets based on the foods they grew up eating or foods their family and friends currently eat. According to our results, the majority of participants stated they used social media 4-6 hours/day and the most common social media platform used by participants was Instagram. The primary reason for using social media was to connect with others. The main reasons people aged 18-30 years viewed health posts from social media influencers were for weight loss, exercise, and to obtain healthier food recipes. Young people are continuously exposed to unhealthy food images on social media (Folkvord et al., 2020). The current research does support the use and popularity of influencers as a new type of celebrity that young people follow to gain advice. Influencers often exhibit and catalog a luxurious lifestyle that their followers do not have but desire to have (Chae, J. 2018). In addition, due to their perceived credibility and likeability, the messages seem more authentic to followers (De Veirman et al., 2019).

Future Research and Summary

This initial study will likely open up new avenues of exploration leading to future research involving the impact of social media influencers, larger populations, specific diets, and specific social media sites that influence individual diet choices. Other avenues worth exploring are whether and how social influencers can be involved in specific health campaigns (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity) (Folkvord et al., 2020). After reviewing the results, it is important that health professionals empower young people to understand the power of influencer marketing and to beware of social media influencers when it comes to making choices that impact their health.

This research is important because it helped us better understand how and why young people choose specific diets and more specifically, what impacts those choices. A recent study by Rounsefell et al. (2019) confirms our findings and reports that social media use can negatively impact body image and healthy food choices among young adults. Over a quarter of the participants (31.7%) in our study stated they changed their diet at least once within the past year because of a social media influencer. Therefore, health professionals must consider social media as an essential platform to engage with young adults to promote healthy behaviors and body images (Rounsefell et al., 2019).

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