On Instagram, the most followed personalities mainly promote unhealthy foods and drinks.
- More than 22 million French people use Instagram.
- Instagram is the 5th most used social network in the world.
When touting food products, influencers almost always advertise junk food. This is the conclusion of new research worrying, while millions of young people today follow the “posts” of their favorite celebrities daily and obesity continues to gain ground in France.
181 accounts assessed
“This cross-sectional study analyzed the content of posts promoting food and drink from the Instagram accounts of 181 highly-followed athletes, actors, television personalities and musicians,” explain the scientists. “The data was collected from May 2019 to March 2020”, they add.
The nutritional quality of 5180 products was evaluated using a nutrient profile index (NPI), which takes into account their content in sugar, sodium, saturated fat, fibre, protein, fruit and vegetables and rank them on a scale of 0 to 100. Foods and beverages with scores below 64 and 70, respectively, were considered “unhealthy”.
Alcoholic beverages, salty snacks and sweets
According to analysis, more than 87% of celebrity Instagram accounts promoted alcoholic drinks, salty snacks and sweets of all kinds. Regarding food, 158 profiles were classified as globally dangerous to health; a figure that rises to 162 (89.5%) for beverages. “Posts with a better nutrition score were associated with a significantly lower number of comments,” the researchers add, partly explaining the pro-junk food dynamic seen among celebrities.
“These results indicate that a large proportion of highly-followed Instagram accounts promote unhealthy food products,” they conclude. Perhaps enough to make the many countries react that have already adopted measures aimed at limiting the exposure of young people to this type of advertising when they watch television?
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