Obesity is a big problem that needs big solutions, and Facebook may be coming to the rescue.

In a way that’s never been possible before, people can record their interests, habits and daily activities that at first blush might seem to have only trivial meaning. But such data can be accessed by almost anyone (depending on privacy settings, of course), and that includes researchers. Scientists are turning to Facebook as a way to track how obesity trends, for example, correlate with geographically-specific trends in diet and exercise, and hope that such information can lead to more targeted ways of reversing the obesity epidemic.

The researchers, from Boston Children’s Hospital, aggregated data on Facebook users’ interests and discovered that the higher percentage of people with interests that related to healthy and active lifestyles in a given area, the lower was that region’s obesity rate. The opposite was true for areas with a large percentage of people with Facebook interests that related to television, for example.

To come up with the link, the scientists studied what national Facebook users posted on their timelines, what they “liked,” and what they shared with their friends to come up with nation-wide associations.They also looked specifically at users within New York City and found similar trends at the neighborhood level, documenting that communities with more residents expressing interest in healthy lifestyle behaviors and products showed lower obesity rates than those where residents tended to show more interest in television shows.

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Read also:

Researchers Can Tell How Healthy Your Neighborhood Is From Your Facebook … (The Atlantic Cities)

Could Facebook help predict obesity hotspots? Areas where people 'like' TV … (Daily Mail)

Like A Television Show On Facebook? You May Be Obese (RedOrbit)

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