The role of social networking in attitude and nutritional status among students

Some studies indicated that membership in social networks could lead to overweight or obesity. Other studies showed that social networks and the Internet could affect people's nutritional status. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of social networking on students' attitudes and eating habits. This study is a descriptive survey conducted among students. A questionnaire designed in four main parts to measure students' nutritional status and attitude was used as an instrument. Three hundred sixty-four (364) students participated in this study. In addition, a Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between the variables. Most participants in this study were female and single, and Telegram was the social network with the most users. The participants believed that spending time on social networking did not significantly change their tendency to get more nutritional information. Also, respondents to the questionnaire stated that there was no significant change in their food consumption patterns following social networking. Moreover, the results explained a statistically significant difference in the participants' dietary beliefs due to social networking (p<0.001). Although the effect of social networking on users is a fact, and most of the participants used social networking and were members of several channels, the role of social networking in students' nutrition status was not confirmed. However, social networking could change the students' nutritional beliefs.