Influence of social media on young adults’ food consumption behavior: scale development

Abstract

Social media has revolutionized young adults’ lives, including their food consumption patterns and behavior. This is an emerging concern, and a significant gap exists in understanding how social media influences eating behavior and the potential moderating factors involved. Thus far, despite social media’s crucial role in food consumption behavior, no multi-dimensional scale has been developed to measure social media influence. Hence, the Social Media Influence on Food Consumption Behavior Scale (SMIFCBS) was developed to address this gap using a student sample of 455. Future researchers may utilize the scale to validate the influencing factors and find their association with factors such as life satisfaction, mood and health.

Keywords

• Social media
• food consumption
• young adults
• scale development
• consumption desires stimulus
• health-focused diet orientation