Zeynep Uzdil, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Objectives: This study aims to determine the relationship between advertisements and nutritional preferences with social media addiction.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 654 volunteer participants, 141 males (21.6%) and 515 females (78.4%) between the ages of 19-45 living in Turkey. Individuals were reached through an online survey. Their descriptive information, body weight and height, whether their nutritional preferences were affected by advertisements, and the Social Media Addiction Scale Adult Form were questioned in the survey form. Individuals were questioned about whether they were affected by advertisements using food groups in determining their food consumption. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS 21.0 program, and p< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: The majority of the participants in the study (50%) are university graduates. The distribution of 66.2% of the individuals according to their body mass index is within the normal range, and a weak positive correlation was determined between body mass index and social media addiction (r=0.146, p< 0.001). Those who see food products in advertisements and are curious about them, those who are influenced by advertisements and buy them, those who are influenced by well-known people in food advertisements, those who consume fatty and sugary ready-to-eat foods and are influenced by advertisements, and those who trust advertisements have higher social media addiction. Individuals who consume ice cream, fast-food and carbonated drinks and are influenced by advertisements have statistically higher social media addiction. Although not statistically significant, individuals whose consumption of chips, diet products and biscuits is influenced by advertisements also have high social media addiction scores.
Conclusions: In this study, a significant relationship was determined between individuals' food advertisements and food preferences and social media addiction. This relationship is in the direction of consuming sugary, fatty and ready-to-eat foods and consuming food by being affected by advertisements. Long-term follow-up studies that include food consumption frequency and record forms are needed to determine the effect of social media addiction on food consumption.
