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Updated: Jul 16, 2026
04:56
Assessment of Social Transmission of Food Preferences Behaviors
Published on: January 25, 2018
Social Media Exposure and Dietary Quality in University Restaurant Consumers: A PLS-SEM Approach from Northern Peru
Luis Edgardo Cruz Salinas1, Marco Agustín Arbulú Ballesteros1, Marilú Trinidad Flores Lezama1
1Institute for Research in Science and Technology, César Vallejo University, Campus Chepén, Trujillo 13001, Peru.
Foods (Basel, Switzerland)
|July 15, 2026
Summary
Social media norms, not information, influence university students' food choices and diet quality. Interventions should focus on social norms rather than nutrition education for better dietary habits.
Area of Science:
- Nutrition Science
- Social Psychology
- Digital Media Studies
Background:
- University students experience dietary shifts due to time, campus food, and social media.
- Mechanisms linking digital media exposure to dietary choices are understudied in Latin America.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine social media's sequential mediation effect on university students' diet quality.
- To investigate social media-driven food norms and in-restaurant choices as mediators.
- To incorporate physical activity as an independent predictor of diet quality.
Main Methods:
- Quantitative, cross-sectional study of 615 university students in northern Peru.
- Face-to-face paper questionnaire assessing Instagram (IG) and TikTok (TK) exposure, food norms (NI), food choices (CD), and diet quality (Y).
- Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analyzed data; diet quality measured by KIDMED index.
Main Results:
- TikTok exposure had a stronger effect on food norms (NI) than Instagram.
- Food norms (NI) fully mediated the effect of social media exposure on food choices (CD).
- Physical activity (PA) and food choices (CD) independently predicted diet quality (Y).
Conclusions:
- Diet quality among university students is primarily influenced by social media-driven norms, not informational content.
- Interventions targeting social norms are more effective than nutrition information campaigns.
- The study provides a model for understanding digital media's impact on student diets in Latin America.
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