Impact Of Social Media On Obesity Awareness In Jeddah City: A Cross-Sectional Study

Obesity awareness depends foremost on social media, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter. Persons share health information, regardless its accuracy. The present study first target is to investigate person's approaches to obesity health data on social media. Second, to report in what way social media influences managing our health and evaluating if persons change their medicine upon these data. A cross-sectional study was directed during February 2020 on persons living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We involved persons using WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter. We prepared an electronic questionnaire for obesity awareness, including multiple-choice and closed-ended questions to specify which media is mostly used. Questionnaire responses showed that 93.9% used WhatsApp, 79.8% Facebook, and 32.3% Twitter (p=0.005). WhatsApp had the major impact regarding health & obesity awareness. Accordingly, accurate and evidence-based health awareness via digital era is necessary.