School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison , Madison, WI 53726, USA.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2012 Oct;15(10):564-8. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0642. Epub 2012 Sep 10.
Obesity is a challenging problem affecting almost half of college students. To solve this complex health problem, innovative approaches must be utilized. Over 94 percent of college students maintain a Facebook profile, providing them a venue to publicly disclose current fitness behaviors. Displayed advertisements on Facebook are tailored to profile content and may influence college students' fitness efforts. Facebook may be an innovative venue for improving college students' fitness behaviors. The purpose of this project was to determine (a) how and to what extent college students are discussing fitness on Facebook, and (b) how user-generated fitness information is linked to advertisements for fitness products and advice. First, public Facebook profiles of individual college students were evaluated for displayed fitness references based on 10 fitness behavior categories. Inter-rator reliability between two coders was 91.18 percent. Second, 10 fitness status updates were generated and posted by a researcher on a Facebook profile; the first 40 linked advertisements to these statements were examined. Advertisements were categorized and then examined for relevance to the college population. A total of 57 individual profiles were examined; owners had an average age of 18.3 years (SD=0.51), and 36.8 percent were women. About 71.9 percent of profiles referenced one or more fitness behavior; 97.6 percent referenced exercise, 4.9 percent dieting, and 4.9 percent unhealthy eating. Among the first 40 ads linked to generated status updates, 40.3 percent were fitness related. Most advertisements were for charity runs (30.4 percent), fitness apparel (24.2 percent), or fad diets (9.9 percent). Students referred both healthy and unhealthy fitness behaviors on their Facebook profiles, and these trigger the display of fitness-related advertisements of which few appear applicable. A community- or university-based intervention could be designed and implemented to provide relevant and tailored information to students on Facebook.
肥胖是一个影响近一半大学生的具有挑战性的问题。为了解决这个复杂的健康问题，必须采用创新方法。超过 94%的大学生拥有 Facebook 个人资料，这为他们提供了一个公开披露当前健身行为的场所。Facebook 上显示的广告是根据个人资料内容定制的，可能会影响大学生的健身努力。Facebook 可能是改善大学生健身行为的创新场所。本项目的目的是确定：（a）大学生在 Facebook 上讨论健身的方式和程度；（b）用户生成的健身信息与健身产品和建议的广告之间的联系。首先，根据 10 种健身行为类别，评估了单个大学生的公开 Facebook 个人资料中显示的健身参考信息。两位编码员之间的内部信度为 91.18%。其次，由一名研究人员在 Facebook 个人资料上生成并发布了 10 条健身状态更新；检查了前 40 个与这些声明相关的链接广告。广告进行了分类，然后检查其与大学生群体的相关性。共检查了 57 个个人资料；所有者的平均年龄为 18.3 岁（SD=0.51），其中 36.8%为女性。约 71.9%的个人资料提到了一种或多种健身行为；97.6%提到了锻炼，4.9%提到了节食，4.9%提到了不健康饮食。在与生成的状态更新相关的前 40 个广告中，40.3%与健身相关。大多数广告是慈善跑步（30.4%）、健身服装（24.2%）或时尚饮食（9.9%）。学生在他们的 Facebook 个人资料上既提到了健康的健身行为，也提到了不健康的健身行为，这些行为会触发与健身相关的广告的显示，而这些广告中很少有看起来适用的。可以设计并实施基于社区或大学的干预措施，以便在 Facebook 上为学生提供相关和定制的信息。
