A Large-Scale Observational Analysis of Social Media Data Reveals Major Public Misperception of the Attainability of Drastic Weight Loss by Dieting.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Diet forums in social media websites provide an opportunity to glimpse the experience of different weight loss diet strategies reported by tens of thousands of individuals.

Methods

We analyzed all postings with weight information from the six major Reddit weight loss diet forums ("subreddits") as reported by forum participants.

Results

Data were collected from January 2011 to April 2020 from all 55,900 users posting weight information. Average start BMI was in the overweight or obese range (26-34 kg/m2), and average goal BMI was in the normal range (21.5-24.5 kg/m2) for all subreddits. There is correlation between start BMI and goal BMI (R2 = 0.63, p < 10-10) and between planned weight loss and reported weight loss (R2 = 0.56, p < 10-10). Approximately 80

SUBMITTER: Yom Tov E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10028364 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature