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. 2021 Sep 24;16(2):190-196.
doi: 10.1177/15598276211044106. eCollection 2022 Mar-Apr.

Public Awareness of a Plant-Based Diet Following the Release of "Game Changers" and "What The Health" Documentaries

Micah Hartwell  1 , Trevor Torgerson  1 , Ryan Essex  1 , Ben Campbell  1 , Danielle Belardo  2 , Matt Vassar  1
Affiliations

Public Awareness of a Plant-Based Diet Following the Release of "Game Changers" and "What The Health" Documentaries

Micah Hartwell et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Background: Poor diet is a leading cause of premature death and thus diet and lifestyle changes are needed; yet, no consensus exists regarding diets that provide the greatest benefit. One of these diets gaining popularity around the world is a plant-based, vegan diet. Recently, Netflix documentaries What the Health (2017) and The Game Changers (2019) have attempted to improve public awareness of veganism and plant-based diets.

Methods: We used Google Trends to obtain data for keywords specific to plant-based diets, veganism, and documentary-specific terms over a time period before and after the release of the Netflix documentaries. We then created a forecasted model for trended search terms using autoregressive integrated moving algorithms and compared the actual trends to the forecast model to determine the effect of the documentaries on each selected term.

Results: Search interest for the term "plant-based diet" increased significantly-2.8 times the mean forecasted value for What the Health (t = 12.892, df = 30.012, P < .001) and 2 times the forecasted mean for The Game Changers (t = 19.826, df = 30.118, P < .001). Additionally, following the release of The Game Changers, mean search interest for "plant-based athlete" was 2.8 times higher than the forecasted values.

Conclusion: The documentaries What the Health (2017) and The Game Changers (2019) are associated with an increased interest in plant-based diets based on Google search trends, highlighting the need for continued research regarding plant-based diets and their health benefits related to chronic disease.

Keywords: Game Changers; Google Trends; What the Health; plant-based diet; vegan.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Matt Vassar is funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. All other authors have nothing to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Search interest in a plant-based diet following the release of a netflix documentary. (A) Actual vs expected search volumes for terms related to a plant-based diet following the release of The GameChangers on Netflix. (B) Actual vs expected search volumes for terms related to a plant-based diet following the release of What the Health on Netflix. Shaded area comprises the area under the curve showing the cumulative growth of search interest between the actual and forecasted values of the term.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Trends in vegan, vegetarian, and healthy search terms over time. Gray shading is 95% confidence interval of forecasted values.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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