This document analyzes information sources and needs around obesity and diabetes on Twitter. It finds that while mainstream news shares scientific knowledge, especially for diabetes, unverified health sources are more popular on Twitter. Content from verified health domains is less shared than unverified domains, which focus more on dieting and treatments. The analysis also found fat shaming is prevalent in obesity discussions on Twitter. Users' information needs include questions about treating and preventing obesity and diabetes, the psychology behind the conditions, societal acceptance, and government policies.

1. Information Sources and Needs
in the Obesity and Diabetes
Twitter Discourse
Yelena Mejova
Qatar Computing Research Institute
@yelenamejova
https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.02850
Digital Health 2018
Lyon, France – April 26, 2018

2. http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/12/13/cancer-2-0/

3. http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/05/12/the-social-life-of-health-information-2011/

4. http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/01/15/health-online-2013/

5. http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/21/the-science-people-see-on-social-media/

6. http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/07/11/online-harassment-2017/
https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/10/8761763/reddit-harassment-ban-fat-people-hate-subreddit
151,000
subscribers!

7. lifestyle diseases
obesity & diabetes

8. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

9. Available
information
Information
needs

10. • Twitter Streaming API
• Query: obese, obesity, diabetes, diabetic
• July 19, 2017 – December 31, 2017
• Obesity: 1,055,196 tweets (505,897 users)
• Diabetes: 2,88,764 tweets (996,486 users)
• US: 36.5% obese, 9.4% diabetic

11. Available
information

12. who provides information?
• “expanded url” -> domain name
• Iteratively coding 100 domains from each

14. verified health:
about health
&
associated with governmental or
academic institution

15. unverified health:
about health
&
has no about page describing
credentials

16. health aggregators:
about health
&
has about page, but it is not
associated with a health organization

17. verified health
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.jdrf.org stateofobesity.org

18. unverified health
medsminders.com peekerhealth.com diabetesmovie.net

19. health aggregator
www.medpagetoday.com www.medicalnewstoday.com www.diabetes.co.uk

20. • Out of the health-related domains, 23% met
criteria for “verified” (in both), while 41%
(obesity) and 50% (diabetes) were unverified
• In terms of comparative volume, unverified
domains had 2.47 (obesity) / 2.72 (diabetes)
times more content than verified

21. how popular is their content?
• retweets* by real users*
• verified domains are less likely to produce viral
content, mean RT rate (diff at p<0.01):
– Obesity: 1.9 verified vs 3.4 other health content
– Diabetes: 2.8 verified vs 3.8 other health content
• unverified:
– Obesity: 7.1
– Diabetes: 9.6
– (not enough data
points for stat. sig)

22. who is central?
• similarity: co-posting by user

23. light blue: social media, blue: news, green: verified health & aggregators,
red: unverified health

24. what do they talk about?
• Obesity
– Verified: prevalence statistics (37%), childhood obesity
(17.5%), therapies (12.5%), pharmaceuticals (5%)
– Unverified: weight loss and dieting (27%), prevalence
statistics (22%), dangerous chemicals (19%), sleep apnea
(14%)
• Diabetes:
– Verified: awareness (30%), diet (11%), pharmaceuticals
(11%), therapies (8%)
– Unverified: weight loss and dieting (25%), click this link
(12%), diet cure (8%), basic info (8%), self-promotion (7%),
super-food (7%), self-diagnosis (7%)

25. Information
needs

26. what do people say to each other?
• excluding information sharing (no urls)
• use CrowdFlower to label 1000 sample of each

27. fat
shaming
personal
info

28. what personal info is revealed?

29. what questions are asked?

30. • psychology of obesity (depression, loneliness)
• social acceptance
• effect on relationships
• regulation
Regarding Obesity as Disease: Evolving
Policies and Their Implications
Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 2016, 45(3)

31. what does Twitter tell us about
information available and
information needs of its users
around obesity and diabetes?

32. Available
information
• mainstream news provides
window into scientific
knowledge
• especially for diabetes,
unverified health sources
are popular
• social media (also largely
unverified) is popular
• content of verified sources
is not as shared
• verified domains favor
statistics, unverified on
dieting and other
treatments

33. Information
needs
• fat shaming is prevalent,
especially in context of
obesity
• questions whether
obesity is a disease
• psychology, loneliness,
behavioral modification
• effectiveness of latest
treatments and weight
loss regiments
• governmental policies
and societal acceptance

34. thank you
Yelena Mejova
@yelenamejova