Content Hungry: How the Nutrition of Food Media Influences Social Media Engagement

What motivates people to consume and engage with food media on social networks? We adopt an evolutionary lens suggest that the valence of people’s affective state varies by implied caloric density media, which has a direct impact engagement. First, we analyze catalog Buzzfeed’s Tasty videos based nutritional content derived from dish’s ingredients find visualizing (i.e., calories per serving) positively influences likes, comments, shares Facebook. then replicate this phenomenon in experiment, providing preliminary evidence for role affect as explanatory mechanism. conclude isolating classic misattribution task, attenuates elevated engagement resulting exposure calorie-dense media. These findings contribute dialogue antecedents offer implications developers, advertisers, consumer health advocates, policymakers.