Through Their Eyes: Capturing Young People’s Digital “Healthy” Food Environment

What do young people actually see when they look at “healthy food” on social media?

To explore this, the CUES project used a photovoice approach—inviting participants to capture posts about healthy eating directly from their own social media feeds over the course of one week.

In total, 559 posts were collected, providing a real-life snapshot of how healthy food is presented in young people’s (20 – 24 years old) everyday digital environments.

What makes this approach unique is that it goes beyond simply analysing content. Participants also reflected on what they saw during focus groups, explaining how they interpreted the posts and how these influenced their perceptions.

The findings reveal a complex picture. On the one hand, social media offers meal inspiration, ideas, and easy-to-follow recipes. On the other hand, it also presents:

• unclear or conflicting nutrition messages
• repeated trends that are not always as healthy as they seem
• a heavy focus on bodily appearance and looks

Even though participants indicated to be aware about misleading online content and try to critically evaluate it, many of them still feel uncertain about what is truly healthy. This is partly due to the fast and highly visual nature of social media, where large amounts of content are consumed quickly. As a result, decisions are often based on quick impressions rather than critical evaluation, making it harder to distinguish reliable from unreliable health information.

Importantly, this photovoice method captures not just what exists online—but what people actually notice, interpret, and remember. This provides a deeper and more realistic understanding of how young people navigate food environments today, and highlights the need to design communication and interventions that reflect these everyday experiences.

👉 Explore the full findings here: https://cuesproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1-s2.0-S0195666326001133-main.pdf