Fitness information-seeking behavior among female university students: A qualitative study

PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Fitness information-seeking behavior among female university students: A qualitative study Soraya Jalali1☯, Mahrokh Keshvari2☯, Mohammad Reza Soleymani ID3☯* 1 Department of Medical Library and Information Sciences, School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, 2 Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, 3 Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Jalali S, Keshvari M, Soleymani MR (2020) Fitness information-seeking behavior among female university students: A qualitative study. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0237735. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0237735 Editor: Hesam Seyedin, Iran University of Medical Sciences, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN Received: April 1, 2020 Accepted: August 1, 2020 Published: August 17, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 Jalali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Abstract Obsession with the physique and appearance is a by-product of consumer societies. As such, fitness and slimming have now become major concerns of Iranian females. This study endeavors to elaborate on information-seeking behaviors among female students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences concerning fitness. This study conducted in 2018, employs a qualitative approach using conventional content analysis. The research population includes female students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 16 of whom were selected with use of purposive sampling. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews and their trustworthiness was confirmed by the criteria of ‘credibility’, ‘confirmability’, ‘dependability’, and ‘transferability’ proposed by Guba and Lincoln. Results reveal four subcategories and nineteen codes on information-seeking behavior. Sub-categories and codes including information-seeking motivations (achieving physical health, physical appearance, social acceptability, self-confidence, family and friends’ pressure) information resources (electronic information resources, social media, printed information resources, doctors and nutritionists, family and friends, traditional & Islamic medicine, radio and TV), information validation (asking the doctors and specialists, matching the information with scientific references, consulting with friends and relatives) and obstacles to seeking information (lack of time, high costs, distrust, access limitation). by increasing the students’ informational and media literacy, providing authentic and low-cost online resources of information and specialized TV programs, the damages rooted in using invalid information resources concerning fitness can be substantially diminished. Introduction The Health information-seeking behavior involves the methods by which individuals consciously search diverse resources for information regarding their health, the risks, diseases, and manners of health preservation [1]. In other words, health information-seeking behavior is a purposive and active behavior for fulfilling an informational need. As an outcome, the PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237735 August 17, 2020 1 / 12 PLOS ONE Fitness information-seeking behavior among female university students information is obtained from different media and resources and is thereafter used. Such behavior represents the way through which individuals search, find, and apply the information related to a disease [2]. The findings of some studies related to the information-seeking behavior demonstrate that people use more accessible resources, such as the Internet, for seeking health-related information [3]. Fitness is one of the topics on which individuals’, particularly the youth, are interested in acquiring information. Wang et al. [4] realized in their research that the health information-seeking behavior in people is affected by four categories of psychological, instrumental, contextual, and demographic factors. In recent years, attaining fitness and an ideal weight has become matter of grave concern to the youth, particularly the girls; As such, diet, exercise, and bodybuilding exercises have interwoven into their daily routines to achieve a desired physical appearance. The modern society has transformed the physical image into a social phenomenon with cultural and symbolic values [5]. Body image is the way individuals see their body and the degree to which they consider themselves attractive [6]. By approaching adolescence and youth, individuals increasingly focus on their appearance and physical attractiveness [7]. Most of the young girls and boys are preoccupied with their body image [8]. They spend most of their time with their peers discussing their appearance and ways to attract the opposite sex and imitate celebrities [9]. The excessive preoccupation of young adults with beauty and fitness contributes to their engagement in rather extreme behaviors to adopt cultural patterns of beauty that are advertised a variety of media and on the Internet [10]. In the past, individuals used to follow more conventional methods of beauty and fitness, but the emergence of media and information resources has changed their attitudes and behaviors. Information-seeking behavior is the way individuals search and use information related to physical and mental health, health threats, and health promotion practices [11]. The findings of some studies showed that in recent years in most societies, including Iran, young girls are more obsessed with their body and physical appearance since body for them conveys a sense of identity [10]. It seems that the important reason for females’ obsession is autophobia and a negative body image [12]. The findings of some studies revealed that body management, has a positive and significant relationship with media consumption, social acceptance of the body, and socioeconomic status; though, religiosity and body management are in an inverse relationship [13]. Undoubtedly, TV has a major role in disseminating health information and individuals obtain the majority of their health-related information by watching TV [14]. In addition to television, owing to a wide range of capacities as well as high flexibility in providing health information, the Internet inspires students to seek health infor (...truncated)