Impact of Obesity-Related Social Media Contents on Urban Men: Application of the Health Belief Model

Health situations across the world triggered by obesity are evidence that obesity has become a global epidemic disease. India had the third-highest number of people with obesity in the world. In this digital era, a key source of health information is social media. There are visible studies on obesity awareness obtained from social media among people with obesity and women. So this study focused on urban men who are more prone to obesity than rural men and who commonly seek health information through social media. Health belief model (HBM) was adopted for the study to understand the impact of social media obesity contents in bringing health behaviour change. Sample data (N=530) were collected using a digitally circulated survey questionnaire. The study found that Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are the top three most used social media among urban men to look for health information. The study found the respondents’ attention to social media obesity contents influence their knowledge on HBM constructs which in turn influence their health behaviour change to treat obesity. Study findings suggest that well-informing posts about obesity from health experts should be shared over social media frequently to create enough obesity awareness to bring a health behaviour change. Keywords: obesity, social media, health communication, health belief model, health behaviour, urban men