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© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Instagram (IG) reaches millions of people, sharing personal content and all kinds of information, including those related to exercise and health. However, the scientific quality of the posted information is questionable. Thus, this study aimed to analyze whether exercise and health information posted by popular Brazilian IG influencers has technical-scientific accuracy. A personal IG account was created to identify Brazilian IG profiles. The inclusion criteria of the accounts were: (1) having 50% of all the shared posts related to topics about exercise and health, such as nutrition, health and wellness, medicine, or physical fitness; and (2) having over 100,000 followers. Qualitative analysis revealed a low quality percentage (38.79 ± 25.43%) for all analyzed posts. Out of all the posts, only 13 (~2.7%) cited a reference endorsing the information. Moreover, the higher quality-ratio score of the posts was not directly associated with the higher educational qualification of the influencers (r = 0.313; p = 0.076). Nevertheless, the number of followers was inversely correlated with the educational qualification of the influencers (r = −0.450; p = 0.009), but not with the quality-ratio score of the posts (r = −0.178 p = 0.322). We conclude that prominent Brazilian IG influencers disseminate low-quality information about exercise and health, contributing to the wide-spreading of misinformation to millions of followers.

Details

Title
Is Social Media Spreading Misinformation on Exercise and Health in Brazil?
Author
Marocolo, Moacir 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Anderson, Meireles 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Hiago Leandro Rodrigues de Souza 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gustavo Ribeiro Mota 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Oranchuk, Dustin Jay 3 ; Rhaí, André Arriel 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Laura Hora Rios Leite 1 

 Department of Physiology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora 36036-900, Brazil; [email protected] (A.M.); [email protected] (H.L.R.d.S.); [email protected] (R.A.A.); [email protected] (L.H.R.L.) 
 Exercise Science, Health and Human Performance Research Group, Department of Sport Sciences, Institute of Health Sciences, Federal University of Triangulo Mineiro, Uberaba 38025-180, Brazil; [email protected] 
 Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand, School of Sport and Recreation, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1142, New Zealand; [email protected] 
First page
11914
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
1661-7827
e-ISSN
1660-4601
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2602075728
Copyright
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.