Social media mentions: You are what... you tweet?

Examining social media could allow researchers an avenue to down the nation. Researchers have developed an online interactive platform that measures the “caloric content” of the nation’s social media posts, revealing eating habits by state.

Named the Lexicocalorimeter, the instrument has been able to show which states are healthiest in their eating habit by analyzing social media posts on food and exercise. The study, published in PLOS ONE, looks at millions of Twitter posts in terms of caloric intake and exercise patterns.

"This can be a powerful public health tool," said Peter Dodds, a scientist at the University of Vermont, who co-led the invention of the new tool. "It's a bit like having a satellite image of how people in a state or city are eating and exercising."

The study analyzed 50 million geo-tagged tweets from 2011 and 2012 for mentions of food and fitness activities by state. Searching for terms such as green beans, pizza and bacon, the Lexicocalorimeter then looked for fitness activities such as running, sledding or skiing. The results lead researchers to rank the states by the balance of consumption and activity.

Results showed that Colorado had the most balance in terms of caloric intake and output, while Mississippi ranked. Researchers also noted Vermont had a lot of mentions of bacon, the state also expend more calories than usual with tweets about outdoor activities.

Researchers hope that this online tool can assist in measuring the overall health of the U.S. population.

"Given the right tools, our mobile phones will very soon know more about us than we know about ourselves," said University of Vermont’s Chris Danforth. "While the Lexicocalorimeter is focused on eating and exercise, and the Hedonometer is measuring happiness, the methodology we're building is far more general, and will eventually contribute to a dashboard of public health measures to complement traditional sources of data.”