Nutrition and covid-19: Analysis of publications on the Instagram social network

Abstract

Good nutrition has been a positive ally against the new coronavirus (SARS-COV-2), the causative agent of the current pandemic of COVID-19. Virtual platforms stand out as strategies for sharing information about COVID-19. Among them, due to its practicality of use, Instagram is being widely used by government institutions and health professionals. Considering the role of the Nutritionist as the professional capable of prescribing dietary planning, such an approach on social networks becomes worrying from the point of view of public health. The aim of this work was to analyze what is being published and who is publishing about nutrition and coronavirus on the social network Instagram. The following hashtags (#) were selected: #nutriçãocoronavirus, #nutricaocoronavirus, #nutricaocovid, and #nutriçãocovid19. Having recorded the total number of posts for each of them, in May 2020, the publications found were grouped in blocks according to the affinity of subjects. When analyzing all publications (n = 79), the results demonstrate that the most addressed topic was “healthy eating” and that 87.37% of the publications (n = 69) were posted by profiles of nutritionists. Only 12.6% (n = 10) of these publications properly used bibliographic references, being the Federal Council of Nutritionists (CFN) the most used reference. In conclusion, despite the predominance of publications by nutritionists in this filed, to achieve their goal, which is health promotion, these professionals should prioritize the sharing of information based on scientific evidence.