Online Health Communities’ Portrayal of Obesity on Social Media Platforms in South Africa

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Abstract

The rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity in South Africa, intertwined with extensive changes in diet, life expectancy, and nutritional status has led to a complex framing of obesity on social media. This has prompted the prioritization of media-based social and behavior change communication interventions leveraging social media for obesity prevention. This study was conducted to understand how obesity is constructed and represented on social media in South Africa. A media review of Facebook and Twitter platforms in South Africa was conducted over a six-month period using Meltwater software for data collection. The search yielded 13 500 posts and tweets. Data were cleaned and coded in Microsoft Excel. Content and framing analysis were performed to add insight into the nature of obesity discourse on social media. Portrayals of obesity on social media were dominated by stigmatizing imagery blaming individuals for unhealthy lifestyles, poor diets, and lack of physical activity. Future media-based social and behavior change communication interventions for obesity prevention can leverage social media to reach the broader public and insights into media portrayals of obesity have the potential to influence the shape and development of these behavioral interventions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Institutional Review Board Statement

We applied for a Research Ethics Waiver at the Wits Human Research Ethics Committee (Medical). Our Ethics waiver application was submitted on October 7, 2019 for consideration at a formal meeting held on October 25, 2019. Approval of the research title was granted on February 5, 2020 as the study did not involve humans or animals (reference: R14/49).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada (Grant number: 108424-001) with additional support from the SAMRC/Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science – PRICELESS SA (Grant number 23108)