Fitness or socializing - A multi-dimensional analysis of online fitness communities users

• Published in: iScience 2024-07, Vol.27 (7), p.109753, Article 109753
• Main Authors: Wang, Lei, Feng, Wanxuan, Zhang, Jianghua, Li, Tuojian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Health sciences; Natural sciences
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109753

The digital and social network revolution in the fitness industry will provide consumers with opportunities to achieve their healthy and active lifestyle goals both online and offline. The online fitness communities provide us an ideal context for the health behavior research with behavioral logs and user-generated content. Enhanced user profiles can empower platform operators to implement more tailored recommendations, thereby enhancing the efficiency of precision marketing and fitness promotion. This study aims to accurately construct user profiles for Chinese online fitness community users and provide future health promotion strategies accordingly. We propose a novel approach that integrates explicit behavior logs and implicit user preferences to accurately construct user profiles. Our findings indicate that users primarily prioritize fitness benefits, incentives, and decision-making. Our results demonstrate the relationship between fitness behavior and implicit preferences, suggesting that promoting fitness behavior can be achieved through streamlining decision-making processes, establishing incentive communities, and emphasizing benefits. [Display omitted] •OFC user profiles perfected by integrating explicit logs and implicit preferences•OFC users primarily prioritize fitness benefits, incentives, and decision-making•Fitness behavior is related with implicit preferences•Fitness can be promoted by streamlining decision-making and community motivation Health sciences; Natural sciences; Applied sciences