General public’s information-seeking patterns of topics related to obesity: Google trends analysis

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a major public health challenge, and recent literature sheds light on the concept of “normalization” of obesity. Objective: We aimed to study the worldwide pattern of web-based information seeking by public on obesity and on its related terms and topics using Google Trends. Methods: We compared the relative frequency of obesity-related search terms and topics between 2004 and 2019 on Google Trends. The mean relative interest scores for these terms over the 4-year quartiles were compared. Results: The mean relative interest score of the search term “obesity” consistently decreased with time in all four quartiles (2004-2019), whereas the relative interest scores of the search topics “weight loss” and “abdominal obesity” increased. The topic “weight loss” was popular during the month of January, and its median relative interest score for January was higher than that for other months for the entire study period (P