Representations of Health and Wellness on Instagram: An Analysis of 285,000 Posts

Author:

Bak Chaewon,Priniski J. Hunter

Abstract

Image-based social media is experiencing a significant increase in popularity among adolescents and young adults (Pew Research Center, 2018). On Instagram, Health Influencers share magazine-ready images that communicate health and wellness to millions of followers. These images have been criticized by academics and the public alike as self-promotional, lacking a scientific basis, and promoting Western beauty standards and thin-ideals. Given Health Influencers' considerable social reach and mounting concern that certain types of Instagram content can negatively affect young people’s mental health and body image, it is important to assess the social costs of their posting habits. While empirical research has identified types of posts that contribute to body image issues (e.g., selfies exhibiting naked body parts), research on the prevalence of these posts in health messages on Instagram is more limited. To this end, we analyzed the most frequently used hashtags of 784 Health Influencers with ten-thousand or more followers and fit an unsupervised topic model to over 285,000 of their posts. This analysis revealed that a majority of health and wellness content on Instagram is related to four themes: Cosmetics and Appearance, Self-promotion, Fitness, and General Wellness. Furthermore, while many posts appear to promote health habits (e.g., vegan food recipes or posts of inspiration and encouragement), a substantial number of images contain content previous research has suggested can lead to body-image and self-esteem issues (e.g., photos promoting thin-body ideals). Future work will package this model as a web application that informs users of their own potentially harmful posting behaviors.

Publisher

Center for Open Science

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