Qualitative evaluation of a social media campaign to improve healthy food habits among urban adolescent females in Indonesia

Abstract

Objective: The current study focuses on how adolescent girls in urban Indonesia accept technology in a social media (SM) campaign to promote healthy eating habits. Design: The study was a qualitative evaluation of the online campaign. In-depth interviews using semi-structured interview guidelines and focus group discussions were used to collect data. Data were analysed using a general inductive approach to provide simple and straightforward answers to our study questions. Settings: The study was conducted in two urban areas in Indonesia: Jakarta and Jogjakarta. Participants: Adolescent girls aged 16–19 years. Results: The SM campaign was perceived as beneficial for increasing participants’ knowledge. The campaign helped increase participants’ awareness of healthy diets and the health risks of unhealthy diets as well as increase their motivation to change their behaviour and avoid foods containing salt, sugar and excess fat. The participants perceived information from the online campaign as complete and trustworthy. Instagram was cited as the easiest platform to use, while the website was cited as having the most complete information. YouTube provided the best viewing experience but was considered a data-heavy platform. The barriers to change were perceptions of taste, limited choices for healthy but affordable ingredients and family-related factors. Conclusions: The online nutrition campaign was well accepted by Indonesian urban adolescent females and motivated them to act to protect their health. Future nutrition-related SM campaigns aimed at this demographic should focus on platforms with the greatest benefit and ease of use.

School Food Environment in Urban Zambia: A Qualitative Analysis of Drivers of Adolescent Food Choices and Their Policy Implications

“…The secondary school curriculum in Zambia offers some nutritional education as evidenced by 65% of school-going adolescents who reported having been taught about healthy eating and benefits of consuming fruit and vegetable [ 52 ]. School based lessons must be reinforced by social media communication campaigns tailored to adolescents, as these have been shown to improve healthy food habits among adolescents in countries like Indonesia [ 87 , 88 ]. Communication campaigns provide an opportunity to address concerns about affordability of healthy food by promoting consumption of locally available healthy foods that are relatively cheaper.…”

Enabling Better Nutrition and Physical Activity for Adolescents from Middle Eastern Backgrounds: Focus Groups

“…This could be explained by the findings of a recent Australian study, declaring a lack of healthy food options in high schools [ 26 ]. Earlier studies have emphasised the importance for future prevention programs to collaborate with stakeholders within the community (i.e., ME community) to provide environmental and interpersonal support [ 33 , 37 , 38 ].…”

“…This emphasises the importance of developing programs that encompass both delivery modes, social media and face-to-face, consistent with other findings [ 29 ]. This can be achieved by providing adolescents with information on social media from trustworthy sources, as well as organising face-to-face cooking classes, as reinforced in similar studies [ 29 , 37 ]. Despite respondents preferring school over community-based interventions, a previous systematic review has suggested that interventions are more effective if they involve schools and communities and/or families [ 42 ].…”

Intention to Practice Exclusive Breastfeeding and its Associated Factors among Female College Students

“…The previous study in Indonesia found that online campaign on Indonesian adolescent female was well accepted and motivated them to act the protective behavior. The health ministry needs to collaborate with influential person such as celebrity couple and other influential person to campaign about exclusive breastfeeding using social media that popular in Indonesian young women such as Instagram and Facebook [17].…”