Use of social networks and food consumption of young adults who attend gyms in the city of guayaquil.

Abstract

Introduction: The ability of social media to influence young adult audiences has also piqued the interest of public health professionals as a potential platform for health promotion. Objective: To determine the use of social networks and food consumption of young adults who attend gyms in the city of Guayaquil.  Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study. We worked with a sample of 509 young adults from 18 to 26 years old who attend different gyms in the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador during the months of July to December 2021. The information was collected through the use of a structured online questionnaire created in Google forms previously validated. For the identification of eating habits, the semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire was used. Results:  91.8% of those surveyed almost always use social networks (p0.018), the average time spent using social networks is 1 to 2 hours per day (37.7%; p0.048) and the social network they use the most is Facebook (42.4%; p<0.0001). Regarding food, young people follow pages that provide information on diets (62.1%; p<0.0001) with the intention of preparing them at some point (80.7%), the information is provided by nutritionists (63, 5%; p0.015). According to the frequency of food consumption (Table III), those surveyed report an insufficient intake of dairy products and derivatives (84.1%; p<0.0001), greens and vegetables (71.5%), fruits (78.2%; p<0.0001), cereals and derivatives (55.2%). Conclusions: Social networks can positively or negatively influence the eating behavior of adolescents and young adults, which is why food education from nutrition experts is necessary to prevent misleading publications from having repercussions on the individual's health status.