Leveraging Social Network Analysis to Explore Obesity Talks on Twitter

Obesity is an escalating health concern worldwide. In this paper, we leverage social network analysis to explore obesity talks on Twitter and we aim to provide beneficial insights to healthcare professionals while addressing the obesity epidemic. The study presented in this paper addresses several questions like, for example, 'who are the most influential users when it comes to obesity-related discussions on Twitter?' and 'what are the most commonly discussed obesity-related topics on Twitter?'.We used the NodeXL software to collect, construct, and analyze social networks of obesity-related tweets in the period from March 18 to April 9, 2019. The main findings of our study are as follows: (1) users differ in their persistence in obesity-related discussions and we identified several influential users who continuously spread obesity-related information to a large number of audience on Twitter, and (2) social networks differ in size, density, and shape and both the size of the network and its density give indications on the significance of the topic that is being reiterated among users in that network. We also identified some of the most commonly discussed obesity-related topics on Twitter that include: childhood obesity, causes of obesity, and the lack of sufficient healthcare support for the public's struggle with obesity.