Understanding Weight Change Behaviors through Online Social Networks

Abstract

Online Social Networks (OSNs) provide a good way to make connections with people with similar interests and goals. In particular, health-centered OSNs are emerging to provide knowledge and support for those interested in managing their own health. This paper provides an empirical analysis of a health OSN, which allows its users to record their foods and exercises, track their diet progress toward weight-change goals, and socialize and group with each other for community support. Based on about five month data collected from more than 107,000 users, the authors studied their weigh-in behaviors and tracked their weight-change progress. The authors found that the users’ weight changes correlated positively with the number of weigh-ins, the number of their friends, and their friends’ weight-change performance. The authors also show that the users’ weight changes have rippling effects in the OSN due to social influence. The strength of such online influence and its propagation distance appear to be greater than those in a real-world social network.

Tweeting it off: characteristics of adults who tweet about a weight loss attempt

“…Other studies of online weight loss programs found that online social network participation predicted weight loss, [11][12][13][14] and that weight loss was positively related to both the user's number of 'friends' and the weight loss achieved by these 'friends'. 15 The present mixed-methods study aims to describe adults who use the online social network Twitter to discuss a current weight loss attempt, how their Twitter friends compare with their Facebook friends, their family and in-person friends in terms of positive and negative social influence, whether positive and negative social influence from these relationships predicts weight lost in the most recent attempt, and the benefits and drawbacks of discussing weight loss in an online social network. We hypothesize that social ties on Twitter will be greater purveyors of positive social influence and less purveyors of negative social influence than in-person social ties.…”