Physical Activity Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review

作者：D. David Thomas, Linglin Xu, Brian Yu, Octavio Alanis, John Adamek, Imani Canton, Xuan Lin, Yan Luo, Sean P. Mullen · 发表于：JMIR Infodemiology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.2196/62760 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Misinformation and Its Impacts、Social Media in Health Education、Health Literacy and Information Accessibility

BACKGROUND: Social media is a prominent way in which health information is spread. The accuracy and credibility of such sources range widely, with misleading statements, misreported results of studies, and a lack of references causing health misinformation to become a growing problem. However, previous research on health misinformation related to topics including vaccines, nutrition, and cancer has excluded physical activity despite it being highly searched for and discussed online. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review was designed to synthesize the existing literature focused on physical activity misinformation on social media in accordance with PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 guidelines. METHODS: Keyword searches were conducted in PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus databases for records published between January 2016 and May 2025. This search strategy yielded 9039 articles. Titles and abstracts were screened by independent reviewers, resulting in 168 (1.86%) articles selected for full-text review. After further review, 33 (19.6%) articles met the inclusion criteria and were used in the final synthesis. RESULTS: For the 33 studies selected, topics included physical rehabilitation and therapeutic exercise recommendations (n=15, 45%), general physical activity and messaging (n=6, 18%), exercising with a specific condition (n=4, 12%), women's health (n=3, 9%), weight loss (n=2, 6%), exercise testing (n=1, 3%), ...