Nutrition-Related Messages Shared Among the Online Transgender Community: A Netnography of YouTube Vloggers

Abstract

Purpose: Nutrition care guidelines for the transgender population do not exist, despite significant nutritionrelated clinical and psychosocial considerations. Social networking sites (SNSs) provide multidirectional communication and have expanded in popularity among transgender users as a resource for health information and support. The nature of the content shared among the online transgender community is unknown, but may suggest the nutrition-related areas that are of most importance to the transgender population. The objective of this qualitative netnography was to describe the food and nutrition messages shared among the transgender community using video blogs (vlogs) on the SNS, YouTube. Methods: Public vlogs were assessed using the constant comparative method. Pseudoquantitative methods were used to capture the prevalence of each subtheme; quotes were documented verbatim. Data were collected from transgender users' public vlogs (n = 30) self-published on YouTube from 2013 to 2018. Results: Six major themes were generated from the data analysis. These included the following: functions of diet and exercise; diet and exercise philosophies; ''how to'' vlogs; advice for success; using dietary supplements; and effects of hormone therapy. Conclusions: Nutrition-related messages are widely shared among the online transgender community through YouTube. The identified themes reflect topics of interest and expressed needs of transgender individuals. SNSs provide health care providers with a platform to improve patient education and health literacy. Health care providers may actively engage in online discussions to build trust, answer questions, and provide a source of accurate and evidence-based information. Social media as a health information resourceThe transgender population faces several barriers to adequate health care, including discrimination, lack of trained providers, financial constraints, and

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“…The first study included in the review was published in 2009 (21) and the vast majority of such studies were published since 2015 (10, . Of the thirty-seven studies, five concerned food and nutritional security (25,29,37,38,48) , twenty-five concerned body image and weight control (21,23,24,(26)(27)(28)(32)(33)(34)36,(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)49,50,(52)(53)(54)(55) , five concerned nutritional status (10,22,30,31,56) , one concerned nutritional health care (51) and one involved emic views of healthy eating (39) . The most frequent study designs were cross-sectional (n 22), followed by case reports (n 5), case-controls (n 4), cohort studies (n 4) and one ethnographic study (n 1) (see Table 1).…”

“…Food restriction, even when not diagnosed, is most frequently used as an instrument to fit into body and gender standards (21,32) . In general, it is difficult to access treatment for eating disorder services that do not discriminate against transgender people (51) , leading many in the community to the internet for tips and information on diets, exercises and dietary supplements (39) .…”

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Use of Netnography in Contemporary Marketing Research

“…In the beginning, it was mostly sociology (Kozinets, 1997(Kozinets, , 1998 psychology (Kozinets, 2002;Nelson & Otnes, 2005), both somehow often applied to business. Later political science (Tsandzana, 2019), computer science (Del Vecchio et al, 2020), even medicine (Jokipalo & Khudayarov, 2021), or nutrition and health management (Schier & Linsenmeyer, 2019). In the field of business, there had been multiple fields that had used netnography as a tool to gain more knowledge about the market, consumers, or customers: tourism industry (Tavakoli & Mura, 2018;Thanh & Kirova, 2018), the fashion industry (Xharavina, Kapoulas, & Miaoulis, 2020), telecommunication industry (Bhattacharyya & Dash, 2020), celebrity marketing (Logan, 2015), political marketing (Mahestu & Sumbogo, 2020) even helping to solve issues in brand management (Schembri & Latimer, 2016), customer relationship management (Bhattacharyya & Dash, 2020), public relations (Toledano, 2017), consumer behaviour (Wei et al, 2011;Hua et al, 2020) and so many other areas and fields.…”

“…Recently there have been netnographic research projects that used vlogs (e.g. Schier & Linsenmeyer, 2019) or photos (Uzunboylu et al, 2020), but most of the published studies use written posts, comments, forum contributions, blogs, etc. Some communities are exclusive; therefore, access for researchers must be granted by the company that has the right to allow the access, but most of the research is done on open online platforms.…”