This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A woman in her 40s scrolls through Instagram. Between photos of friends, recipes and vacation photos, she comes across a video about perimenopause.
The woman on screen explains that perimenopause is to blame for feeling tired, having trouble remembering things, struggling to sleep or gaining weight. Another post promises to "balance" her hormones. A third recommends a supplement that could help her symptoms.
All this advice feels personal, reassuring and easy to understand. It provides a simple explanation and potential solution to help her feel a bit more vibrant. But what's really behind these types of posts?
We set up a new Instagram account to find out. Women are increasingly turning to social media for information about their health. But we know surprisingly little about the broader mix of content they encounter.
So, late last year, we created a new Instagram account, searched #womenshealth and sampled the first 500 posts that appeared in the feed. At the time, there were more than 8.8 million posts under this hashtag. Now there are 9.6 million.
After removing duplicates and broken links, we had a final sample of 472 posts. We looked at the topics discussed, who was posting, whether posts made health claims, whether there was a financial interest and whether scientific evidence was mentioned. In our newly published study, we show that hormonal and reproductive health was the most common topic, appearing in almost half of all posts.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
