The overload of health information has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health authorities play a primary role in managing this information. However, individuals have to apply critical health literacy to evaluate it. The objective of this paper is to identify targets for strengthening critical health literacy by focusing on the field of argumentation theory. This paper is based on the textual analysis of instances of health information through the lens of argumentation theory. The results show that critical health literacy benefits from: (1) understanding the concept of argument and the supporting reasons, (2) identifying the main argument schemes, and (3) the knowledge and use of the main critical questions to check the soundness of arguments. This study operationalizes the main aspects of critical health literacy. It calls for specific educational and training initiatives in the field. Moreover, it argues in favor of broadening the current educational curricula to empower individuals to engage in informed and quality decision making. Strengthening individuals’ critical health literacy involves interventions to empower in argument evaluation. For this purpose, argumentation theory has analytical and normative frameworks that can be adapted within a lay-audience education concept. The recent COVID-19 pandemic and the related mushrooming of fake news, conspiracy theories, and more general disinformation has put the so-called “infodemic” in the global spotlight. The WHO refers to infodemic as the overload of information, including mis/disinformation . The intcritical health literacy [Public health authorities can play a central role in this context . One posliteracy ,10,11. Aliteracy .argumentation theory and by contextualizing them from a health-educational perspective.This paper aims to identify targets for strengthening an individual’s critical literacy about the appraisal of health information. This objective is achieved by theorizing and illustrating some main principles for evaluating information rooted in the field of how to support claims by reasons and whether this support is sound or unsound. Still, little attention has been paid to harness its main achievements: the potential to guide and educate people in the process of appraising health information. This is unfortunate, as taking the essence of this knowledge into account, argumentation theory can provide valuable insights on how to guide people in the process of evaluation, i.e., whether a particular piece of health information contains arguments and whether these arguments are qualitatively high or poor [Argumentation theory is conceptually and empirically well developed . Specifi or poor ,19. Cons or poor . To fill this gap, this paper applies the approach of textual analysis to the main theoretical frameworks from argumentation theory. It analyzes examples of arguments—inspired by actual instances of dis/misinformation that actually circulated during the global COVID-19 health crisis—with the goal to pointing towards ways to identify low-quality health information. In doing so, the following sections will explain the value of the following argumentation theory concepts: the structure and purpose of arguments, argument schemes, fallacies and critical questions. Implications of the analysis will then been discussed in the context of critical health literacy.As anticipated above, argumentation is a process of communication where the speaker supports their point of view (a claim) by means of reasons. Although among English speakers, the term “argument” often connotes “quarrel”, its technical meaning, at the basis of argumentation theory, indicates the process and act of discussing with reasoning for or against a claim. For instance, the claim “people should wear masks” might be supported by the reasons “because it is a key measure for suppressing the transmission of COVID-19 (reason 1) and for saving lives (reason 2)”.Key insight 1: People should be made aware of the concept of argument and that the acceptance of a claim derives from the approval of the supporting reasons that, as such, need to be verified and evaluated.People make and present claims and arguments because they want to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way. A health promotion institute can present arguments to convince people to wash their hands frequently during the day. However, due to vested interests, one might try to convince an audience that COVID-19 is like the flu and provide their reasons for this .Although, as we shall see below, reasons can be false, wrong, or misleading, the fact that a speaker provides them to support their claim is an important way to verify the quality of the claim itself . Indeed,A primary skill in the context of critical health literacy and information appraisal is to check whether or not the claims put forward present reasons and, subsequently, whether or not these are valid and supported. Indeed, in the current world of influencers and opinion leaders, it is not unusual that people believe in claims that are unsupported simply because they trust the speaker. The Elaboration Likelihood Model  shows thargument schemes as central components of an argument structure, which is crucial for evaluating argument strength. Specifically, an argument scheme is a template that indicates a specific connection between the claim and the supporting reason/s. Each argument scheme has a name [The literature on argumentation theory has identified s a name .Key insight 2: People should be able to recognize the most essential argument schemes to evaluate the arguments themselves.According to pragma-dialectics, among the most potent approaches to the study of argumentation, a threefold typology of arguments exists , which wsymptomatic argumentation, which poses that a claim can be supported by citing in its reasons a particular sign, symptom, or distinguishing mark of what is claimed. For example, in the following argument:“This person is right about COVID-19 because he is a doctor.”The first argument scheme is named The fact that this person is a doctor is presented as a sign of the quality of what he says about COVID-19.The general argument scheme for this type of argument is:    Y is true of X,because: Z is true of X     and: Z is symptomatic of Y.     In the context of the example:    This person (X) is right about COVID-19 (Y).because: This person (X) is a doctor (Z).     and: Being a doctor is a sign of knowing about health conditions, resulting in true health-related statements.     comparison relation, meaning that a claim is supported by showing that something similar occurs elsewhere. Therefore, people should also accept it for resemblance. For example, in the following argument:“The COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous because past vaccines have also been found to be dangerous.”The second type of argument schemes is based on a Here, the comparison with other vaccines is a reason for supporting the danger of the COVID-19 vaccine.The general argument scheme for this type of argument is:    Y is appropriate for Y,because: Y is appropriate for Z     and: Z is comparable to X.     In the context of the example:    The COVID-19 vaccine (X) is dangerous (Y)because: past vaccines (Z) are dangerous (Y)     and: past vaccines (Z) are comparable to the COVID-19 vaccine (X).     causal relation, where the claim is supported by making a causal connection between itself and its grounding reason. For example, in the following argument:“Some people contracted COVID-19 because they used 5G technologies.”The third type of argument scheme is based on a The general argument scheme is:    Y is true of X,because: Z is true of X     and: Z leads to Y.     In the context of the example:    Using 5G technologies (Z) leads to contracting COVID-19 (Y). because: Some people (X) contracted COVID-19 (Y)     and: Some people (X) used 5G technologies (Z)     Highlighting the formal structure of arguments seems to be technical. Yet, these three main types of argument schemes can be used to analyze and evaluate all types of arguments, where claims support reasons. Strengthening people’s skills in understanding and using these argument schemes is, thus, important as a base to avoid taking claims for granted or relying on peripheral cues that can be misleading.Identifying the structure of arguments in terms of their claims and supporting reasons is the essential step to evaluating the quality of the arguments themselves and defining whether they are of good or poor quality. When, indeed, the reasons put forward to support a claim are false, irrelevant, or, in general, not appropriate, the argument itself lacks soundness. The literature refers to these as “fallacies” that are invalid or faulty reasoning . It is nKey insight 3: People should learn to identify the structure of an argument and then verify if it is fallacious by asking critical questions.“This person is right about COVID-19 because they are a doctor.”More specifically, people can identify the weaknesses of arguments by using “critical questions”, that is, questions to test the soundness of arguments . Referrispecific health conditions, not about all health conditions. Moreover, they might be right in diagnosing and treating cases that they have experience in, but not where they have no clinical experience and have not conducted research, which would hold for most doctors and COVID-19. Moreover, experience is often contextualized in a specific setting. However, for generalizations regarding, for instance, the country-specific COVID-19 clinical situation, they have to rely on national data and conduct sophisticated research that goes beyond their personal opinions. Certain aspects about COVID-19 are not within the domain of general practitioners but rather lie within the field of epidemiologists, virologists, public health experts, and health economics experts. Being a medical doctor does not directly qualify to hold expertise in other areas, even if significant overlaps exist between different health-related fields. Thus, the “authority-oriented” perspective for the argument is weak when the speaker might not have any absolute authority, knowledge, or experience in what they claim.Taking into account the above-introduced knowledge about argument schemes, the main critical question to ask here is: “is Z indeed symptomatic of Y?”, that is, is being a doctor indeed a sign of knowing about all health conditions and, thus, always making factual health-related statements? The unreflected answer might be, “yes, of course”. However, the framework gets shaky by taking a closer look at the claim and the specific situation. First of all, doctors are experts about “The COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous because past vaccines have also been found to be dangerous.”Concerning the second example:Here, there are different critical questions to ask. The first question relates to the grounds for claiming that “vaccines in the past were shown to be dangerous”. Is this true? What does the evidence say and prove? Further, another important question is, “what does it mean to say that a vaccine is dangerous”? Related to these questions, the list of other questions includes: does the vaccine have some side effects like any other drug? Does it have more side effects? Have these effects been proven through rigorous scientific studies? Moreover, provided that some vaccines produced side effects in the past: Is the COVID-19 vaccine comparable to them? In other words, going back to the previous argument schemes: is Z (the COVID-19 vaccine) really equivalent to X (the other vaccines)? Is X (the other vaccines) really Y (dangerous)?Overall, arguments from analogies always work by claiming comparisons. It is, thus, essential to verify the nature of the comparison itself. In particular, whether there is a relation/correspondence between two things and, if so, in which way.“Some people contracted COVID-19 because they were exposed to 5G radiowaves.”Lastly:The main critical question is: “does Z indeed lead to Y?”, that is: does exposure to 5G lead to COVID-19? There is no scientific evidence that supports any link between the two as such. Thus, the argument is unsound, as the proposed cause of something is unproven. This is a typical pitfall of arguments implying that “something has the inevitable result”, that “something causes something”, and that “something always occurs when …”. The foundation of these general claims has to be carefully reviewed, as making faulty causal links between events indicates flawed critical thinking, which can lead to dangerous health decision-making.(1)to recognize when health information is argumentative, that is, when the speaker presents a claim that they want the audience to accept, believe, or act upon;(2)to identify whether reasons support claims, and if so, which argument scheme they implement ;(3)to ask the main critical questions to look for evidence behind the proposed reasons that can support or deny the claims’ validity (and acceptance).This paper contributes to the field of critical health literacy. It proposes specific topics from argumentation theory that could inform the operationalization of critical health literacy and form a basis for interventions aiming at strengthening individuals’ skills in this context. This study argues that a promising way to empower people in evaluating health information is to enhance their skills in the recognition, analysis, and evaluation of arguments. Specifically, it supports the need for people:These insights stemming from argumentation theory can contribute to advancing research on critical health literacy and align with existing findings in these contexts. An individual’s ability to recognize arguments and distortions in information has indeed been identified as one of the central components of critical health literacy in a recent review aiming to operationalize the concept . Always Moreover, some main considerations are needed when thinking about the applicability of our proposed approach. First, we are very well aware that argumentation theory is a technical discipline. Experts in argument analysis and evaluation need years of study to evaluate the quality of information. While we do not expect  that people become experts in argumentation theory, working on these aspects is a way to implement the classical tradition of “critical thinking”. Developing competencies in argumentation theory strengthens individuals as critical thinkers. Indeed, Siegel explains, “a critical thinker is a thinker who can assess claims and make judgments based on reasons, and who understands and conforms to principles governing the evaluation of the force of these arguments” . Basing Thus, our broader aim here is to call for concrete and specific initiatives to empower individuals in information appraisal. This is rather urgent, and there is a whole tradition of theories, models, and tools that can assist in doing this. It is a matter of thinking how to implement the study of critical thinking and argumentation theory in education and training programs, with a focus on the provisions of criteria and standards to assess the quality of information. Of course, expressing one’s opinion is a fundamental right, but the ability to evaluate information should be seen as essential to avoid suboptimal decision-making.Second, health institutions can play a significant role in reinforcing critical health literacy. For decades, health promotion and disease prevention have been driven by an approach of telling people what is good/bad for their health  instead of empowering them to deal with the concurring information that stands out from the informational mainstream but might be more appealing, as it offers easier, less strenuous, or more rewarding alternatives. The pitfalls of this one-sided approach have become evident during the pandemic. The global COVID-19 health crisis has shown that this type of top-down approach to health styles sometimes has little impact on people. People are exposed to so much health information from different traditional and alternative sources that, as we argue, empowering critical thinking skills provides the best guidance. By following this approach, the World Health Organization is already actively working to empower governments and institutions to manage infodemics, including informational overload and dis-/misinformation . BuildinThird, this paper points to the benefits of efforts that target the educational system. Disciplines such as epistemology, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and scientific thinking can inform educational programs in different settings and different levels of education. Thus, for instance, school-based programs could entail specific sections that lay the foundations of scientific thinking and health information quality. A primary focus should be on what evidence is, how it differs from opinions, and the difference between causality and correlation. Similarly, patient education programs, instead of focusing on information provision, could be based on argumentation theory, so to provide patients with critical thinking skills that are useful in making informed decisions concerning their health.At this stage, we also like to acknowledge one important arising limitation. This paper is conceptual. More work on the presentation of best practices of education and training is needed. Additionally, this paper focuses on argumentation theory. It should be complemented by work focusing on the so-called biases and heuristics well-developed in the cognitive sciences . While wThis paper contributes to the operationalization of what critical health literacy entails by looking at the structure and soundness of arguments. Indeed, since false and unsupported claims in health information might pose a risk to individuals’ health, it is fundamental to equip them with the necessary means to assess the credibility and correctness of the claims that confront them. As a well-developed field of research, argumentation theory proposes several concepts and tools to assist with these challenges. Moreover, some of argumentation theory’s main aspects are the basis of current handbooks and courses in critical thinking that have entire sections dedicated to evaluating arguments. The development of argumentation skills requires knowledge and intensive training, which might be an implementational impediment on a larger scale, e.g., for whole societal groups or communities. Yet, some main concepts could inform educational interventions within public health frameworks and help disseminate a general understanding of good versus bad instances of argumentation. As a significant part of information nowadays has a persuasive nature, guiding the public understanding of argumentation and its principles is a major step toward consolidating critical literacy skills. In an information society, where freedom of speech is a crucial value, providing some normative guidance to individuals is a vital step towards empowering a free and reasonable choice about what to believe or not. Francis Bacon once said: “read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.”  An argum


Concerning sex, women showed higher scores in “sport and gender” (p = 0.005), and men in “beliefs about physical activity and gender” (p = 0.045). Regarding covariates, age showed significant differences in “sport and gender” (p = 0.029), with female teachers showing higher values with respect to female trainers and male teachers, while years of experience showed differences in “beliefs about sport and gender” (p = 0.044), with male teachers showing higher values than male trainers and female teachers.Previous scientific literature has not determined the influence exerted by trainers and teachers of adolescents on the development of gender stereotypes in sport. For this reason, the aims of the present research were to establish differences in gender stereotypes in sport among teachers and trainers as a function of profession and sex and to analyze the influence of age and years of experience of male and female trainers and teachers on the gender stereotypes in sport. For this purpose, 127 teachers and trainers completed the questionnaire “gender beliefs and stereotypes towards physical activity and sport”. The results showed a significantly higher score of the teachers in “beliefs about physical activity and gender” ( For decades, the practice of sport has been characterized by the presence of gender stereotypes that have led to consider sport as a purely masculine field in which women were unimportant . HoweverIn adolescents, previous scientific research has shown similar results to those found in the adult population, suggesting that gender stereotypes present in some sports may influence who participates in a sport and how it is viewed by others . This haThis situation is worrying, but the reasons why adolescents present gender stereotypes related to sports practice seems to have a multifactorial origin, with previous research suggesting family, educational, and sports environments as the main elements in the transmission of certain stereotypes ,13,14. IWith respect to the sports field, previous research has shown the presence of gender stereotypes in managers and technical staffs. The presence of these stereotypes is indicated by the lower presence of women in coaching staffs, with men holding the most important positions ,22. ThisGiven the importance of the role that teachers and coaches play with young athletes and the knowledge that is currently available about the gender stereotypes present in both groups, research is needed to analyze the specific areas and dimensions in which coaches and teachers present these gender stereotypes and to analyze whether this phenomenon is different depending on the sex, age, or years of experience of the teachers or coaches, in order to design training programs that address gender stereotypes in a more specific way according to the work environment. For this reason, the aims of the present research were to establish the differences in gender stereotypes among teachers and trainers according to profession and sex and to analyze the influence of age and years of experience on the gender stereotypes of trainers and teachers.The design of this study is descriptive and transversal. The design and development of the manuscript were carried out according to the STROBE statement . Before The sample size was calculated using Rstudio 3.15.0 software . The significance value was set at α = 0.05. The standard deviation (SD) was established in relation to previous studies on gender stereotypes in teachers and trainers (SD = 0.60) . With anThe selection of the participants was made through a consecutive non-probabilistic sampling, selecting all possible subjects who were accessed who wanted to participate voluntarily and who met the following inclusion criteria: (1) acting as a trainer or teacher of adolescents at the time of the investigation; (2) completing the questionnaire “beliefs and gender stereotypes towards physical activity and sport (CEGAFD)” ; (3) pro2/df = 4.47; RMSEA = 0.059, CFI = 0.95; GFI = 0.92; RMR = 0.064), which gives it acceptable reliability and validity. This questionnaire is composed of 24 items that allow information to be obtained on the sports lifestyle habits and gender stereotypes of the participants in relation to different areas of the sports and educational environment, classifying the results obtained in 5 dimensions: differences associated with gender and its relationship with physical activity; sport and gender; stereotypes about physical activity associated with gender; beliefs about physical activity and gender; physical education classes and gender. The first dimension refers to differences in the interests and possibilities of participation in physical activities between boys and girls; the second dimension indicates differences in the barriers and difficulties encountered by men and women in sport; the third dimension presents gender stereotypes commonly related to the sports field; the fourth dimension includes statements about the differences present in the possibilities of physical and technical development of boys and girls; and the fifth dimension refers to differences in the participation of boys and girls in physical education classes. A four-point Likert scale was used to provide answers according to intensity . To determine the value corresponding to each factor, the value contributed, from 1 to 4, to each question of that dimension was summed following the methodology of Vera et al. [To carry out the data collection, teachers and trainers completed the questionnaire “beliefs and gender stereotypes towards physical activity and sport (CEGAFD)”  anonymoua et al. . The maxa et al. .p < 0.0125. The confidence interval (CI) of the differences (95% CI) was included. Partial eta squared (η2) was used to calculate the effect size (ES) and was defined as small if ES ≥ 0.10, moderate if ES ≥ 0.30, large if ES ≥1.2, very large if ES ≥ 2.0 [p < 0.05 was established to determine statistical significance. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical package .The distribution of the data was initially assessed using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov normality test. Due to the normality of the data, statistical analysis was performed using parametric tests. To obtain the results, the Student’s t-test was performed to determine the differences in gender stereotypes between teachers and trainers and between men and women. Cohen’s d was calculated to determine the size of the effect in these cases, being small when d < 0.2, moderate when d < 0.8, and large when d > 0.8 . SubsequES ≥ 2.0 . A valuep = 0.048), with teachers having the highest values, and in the dimension “physical education classes and gender” (p = 0.006), in which trainers reported the highest scores, with a moderate effect size in both cases (p = 0.005), with females reporting higher scores, and “beliefs about physical activity and gender” (p = 0.045), with men scoring higher in this case and with a moderate effect size in both cases (p = 0.023), “beliefs about physical activity and gender” (p = 0.015), and “physical education classes and gender” (p = 0.039), with a moderate effect size in all three dimensions. Female teachers showed the highest values in “sport and gender”, male teachers in “beliefs about physical activity and gender”, and female trainers in “physical education classes and gender”. When considering the covariates age and years of experience in the MANCOVA, age showed significant differences in “sport and gender” (p = 0.029), while years of experience showed differences in “beliefs about sport and gender” (p = 0.044), with a moderate effect size.th cases . Sex, onth cases . Table 2p = 0.008; mean diff = −2.186; 95% CI = −3.790; −0.581), with female teachers scoring higher, and “beliefs about physical activity and gender” , with stereotypes of male teachers being higher, and between male trainers and male teachers in “beliefs about physical activity and gender” , with the highest score for male teachers, and in “physical education classes and gender” , with male trainers scoring higher. When the covariates were included in the analysis (MANCOVA), age showed differences in “sport and gender” between female trainers and female teachers , and between male teachers and female teachers , with female teachers score higher in both cases. Regarding years of experience, the differences were significant in “beliefs about physical activity and gender” between male teachers and female teachers  and male trainers and male teachers , with male teachers scoring higher in both.Bonferroni post hoc analysis of the ANOVA and MANCOVA results was carried out. The differences were significant between male and female teachers in the dimensions “sport and gender” (The first aim of this research was to establish differences in gender stereotypes between teachers and trainers according to profession and sex. In terms of profession, the results obtained showed significant differences, with teachers showing more stereotypes in the dimension “beliefs about physical activity and gender” and trainers in the dimension “physical education classes and gender”, this finding being relevant because it shows that gender stereotypes are still present in teachers and trainers, which coincides with the results of previous research ,19,21,22The trainers, therefore, have a vision in which the gender stereotypes of adolescents are promoted by the educational environment, but it is surprising that in teachers the dimension with the highest score is “beliefs about physical activity and gender”, in which the possibilities of physical development of adolescents are valued, without mentioning any specific area. The subject of physical education reports different levels of sports practice between boys and girls, with boys showing higher levels of moderate and vigorous physical activity . These lRegarding the sex of the participants, it should be noted that the results showed differences between men and women in the dimensions “sport and gender” and “beliefs about physical activity and gender”. Women, mainly female teachers, compared to male teachers, showed higher scores in the dimension “sport and gender”, which refers to the difficulties encountered by girls in practicing sports compared to boys. These data should be interpreted with caution, but a possible explanation would be that female teachers had an adolescence in which female sport was unusual and received numerous sexist criticisms ,39, beinRegarding the dimension “beliefs about physical activity and gender”, male teachers reported higher values compared to female teachers, which is especially relevant because it corroborates the finding that in the educational environment there are still stereotypes that come from the male gender and are related to the ability of adolescent boys and girls to develop physically. The contents of physical education classes are a fundamental element that influences the levels of participation of adolescent boys and girls , to whicThe second aim of the present research was to analyze the influence of age and years of experience on the gender stereotypes of male and female trainers and male and female teachers. The results showed significant differences between male and female teachers and between female trainers and teachers in the “sport and gender” dimension when considering age, with female teachers reporting higher values in both cases. Regarding the years of experience in the work environment, the differences were significant in the dimension “beliefs about physical activity and gender” between male and female teachers and between male trainers and teachers, with male teachers scoring higher in both cases. These results are similar to those found in previous research in which age was a relevant factor for the emergence of gender stereotypes, with older adults showing higher gender stereotypes compared to younger adults . A possiWith regard to the main practical implications of the results obtained, it should be noted that teachers and coaches present gender stereotypes related to sports practice, so that it would be necessary for the training courses given to teachers and sports coaches to make professionals aware of the influence they can exert, even unconsciously, on the adolescents with whom they work. The results obtained in the research allow us to identify more precisely the areas in which each professional presents more stereotypes, serving as a starting point to provide information to these professionals about the beliefs and thoughts that can generate greater gender stereotypes in adolescents within their field of work, favoring a more inclusive practice without discrimination in the educational and sports environment, regardless of sex, skill level, or performance of the adolescents. Furthermore, the differences in participation in research between men and women is a noteworthy aspect that should be taken into account by the institutions that promote training courses mainly related to the sports coaching profession, encouraging more girls to work as sports coaches, as this will allow more adolescent girls to practice sports and become interested in the profession of sports coaching.Considering the main limitations of the study, it should be noted that the number of men and women was quite disparate within the sample, which is similar to what found in previous research, indicating that there are fewer female coaches than male coaches, probably due to the reduced number of previous mentors for girls, as well as to the difficulty in reconciling work and family life, generating a work environment with greater male participation ,25,26. TTo conclude, the results obtained confirm the presence of gender stereotypes in trainers and teachers of adolescents. Female trainers have the perception that physical education classes are still stereotyped; female teachers consider that the sports field has stereotypes that favor the practice of sports by boys and hinder that of girls, while male teachers think that there are differences in the possibilities of physical development of boys and girls. In addition, teachers and trainers who are older and have more years of experience have more gender stereotypes. Therefore, it seems evident that trainers and teachers present gender stereotypes, but they consider that the transmission of these stereotypes to adolescents takes place in other spheres far from their work performance.


This research paper aims to analyse how consumer emotions have evolved during the pandemic period in comparison with the pre-pandemic period in relation to restaurant demand in the Romanian fine-dining industry and uses valuable information based on social-media sentiment analysis and content analysis. Focusing on theories of consumer behaviour, the study aims to emphasize how, under the influence of an epidemic crisis caused by an infectious disease, individual behaviour adapts to the “new normal”, embracing a series of changes in the preferences, attitudes, and cognitive choice-making processes. The article takes into account a comparative analysis of the consumer emotions between the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period (2010–2019) and the pandemic period (2020–present), based on the online reviews provided by customers for five fine-dining restaurants from Bucharest, the capital city of Romania: The Artist, Relais & Chateaux Le Bistrot Francais, Casa di David, Kaiamo, and L’Atelier. The research was based on two mining analyses—content analysis and sentiment analysis—and explored the emotional intent of words, with the data being collected from TripAdvisor through web-scrapping. The empirical results defined the fine-dining experience during the pandemic as being associated with the quality of the dishes and also with the quality of the service. The overall consumer sentiment in the direction of the restaurants analyzed is positive. The sentiment research found that throughout the epidemic, the consumers’ attitudes about restaurants deteriorated. In this sense, consumers seem to be less satisfied with the restaurants’ services than before the pandemic. This is another thing that the restaurants had difficulties in when adapting their operations for the pandemic. COVID-19 sparked a global public health catastrophe and a series of additional concerns, including an economic downturn, unemployment, and mental instability. The pandemic has affected individuals from all around the world, causing anxiety, stress, worry, dread, repugnance, and poignancy, in addition to the illness [The epidemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to the restaurant industry. Community lockdowns, social distancing, stay-at-home ordering, travel and mobility restrictions, and other strategies to flatten the COVID-19 curve have resulted in the temporary closure of many hospitality businesses and a significant decrease in demand for businesses that were allowed to continue to operate .The concept of “normality” has been completely redefined, leading global economies to the verge of collapse within weeks of the initial occurrence of the virus in Hubei, China in December 2019 . The “neThe global restaurant industry was no exception. Even though the physical distancing rules enforced by local governments, as well as the banning of restaurant dine-in services, have played a key role in alleviating the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, they have also represented a huge threat towards the survival of restaurants worldwide   and the pandemic period (2020–present), based on the online customer reviews for five fine-dining restaurants from Bucharest. Having the “voice of the consumer” at the heart of the study, the primary research combines two mining analyses—content analysis and sentiment analysis—with data being collected from TripAdvisor through web-scrapping. In order to help restaurants maintain and improve their service quality, it is important to analyse the sentiments of the online reviews, which help in providing a better understanding of the opinions conveyed by the diners .Therefore, this paper aims to respond to the following research questions: (RQ1) How do consumers most often describe their fine-dining restaurant experience in the pre-pandemic times and during the pandemic times? (RQ2) What are the most positive and negative words used by the customers in describing the fine-dining experience in both periods? (RQ3) How can the customer sentiment be described in terms of positivity and negativity in both periods? (RQ4) Has there been a change in customer sentiment in the pre-pandemic vs. the pandemic period and is this due to more positivity towards the pre-pandemic or more negativity towards the pandemic?The focus on fine-dining restaurants relies on the assumption that this specific niche segment of the restaurant industry has, for a number of reasons, been the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown. Firstly, unlike casual restaurants, fine-dining restaurants are not just about the food, but about the entire experience of the in-restaurant dining: the décor of the venue, the setting of the table, the music, the scents, the lighting, the exquisite cocktails, and the show made by the chefs are all defining elements of the luxury dining experience. Customers that visit fine-dining restaurants do not do so only to satisfy their hunger, but to indulge in the fantasy of a narrative that became compromised during lockdown, when all venues were closed to the public. Secondly, plating is a key element in the fine-dining experience. This became an issue during lockdown, because of the chef’s inability to maintain the authenticity of the aesthetic of a restaurant by transferring all the different artistic elements from a plate into a delivery cardboard box.Although the consumer sentiment has been mostly analysed during the pandemic , to the The paper is organised as follows. The section of theoretical development emphasises the most relevant opinions regarding the customer sentiment over time, while the third section is dedicated to the presentation of the data and methodology. The section of empirical results highlights the most relevant findings, and the paper ends with the main implications, limitations, and future directions of the research.The pandemic has had a significant impact on all businesses at a global level, with the hospitality industry being one of the most badly hit by the pandemic . Travel The food service industry is highly vulnerable during epidemic crises because of its high reliance on physical human interaction   . It is cAccording to statistics released by the Romanian Hotel and Restaurant Association (HORA), Romania was also severely affected by the pandemic. In 2020, the total turnover of the hotel and restaurant industry registered a total decrease of an astonishing 70% compared to the previous year, with over 40% of local businesses being forced to shut down . Out of Forced by the circumstances, the businesses from the food industry sector have adapted their business model in order to survive the new world order . Unavoidably, under the influence of a global crisis caused by an infectious disease, the individual’s behaviour will adapt to the new context—the world during and after the pandemic, which will give birth to a series of changes in the preferences, attitudes, and cognitive choice-making processes of a population that is increasingly reliant on online ordering and home isolation . The preThe question is how does the shock of the pandemic influence customer beliefs, and how could those beliefs have an impact on their anticipated emotions—both positive and negative—and affect their future willingness with regard to dining in restaurants ? People’COVID-19 has significantly impacted people’s emotions, meaning that it has had undeniable consequences for individual happiness and achievement . In theDuring the pandemic, there has been a decline in positive emotion and a considerable rise in negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression: studies reveal that consumers have become worried about their personal health, as well as the health of their families and loved ones, and concerned about whether they will continue to be able to provide for their basic needs, as well as their loss of freedom . These cJim Samuel et al.  addresseTardin  evaluateThe health belief model (HBM) is a theoretical framework used by scholars to “explain and predict health behaviours in public health research” . The modThe positive factors are visible in the context of consumer behaviour in relation to restaurant dining during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perceived susceptibility captures the individual’s perceived risk of becoming infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus; perceived severity captures the individual’s perception of the severity of the COVID-19 infection; and the perceived benefits refer to people’s awareness that avoiding restaurant dining will reduce their risk of infection  : those that are not so much concerned about the present, but worried about the well-being of their families and the long-terms effects that the pandemic will have on their lives; cut deep (27%): those individuals, who have been most affected by the pandemic, leading them to be the most pessimistic about the future and causing them to reduce their financial spending across all categories; stay calm, carry on (26%): people that have not been directly affected by the pandemic and, as a result, have not changed their spending habits; last, but not least, hibernate and spend (11%): consumers that, in spite of being most worried about the pandemic, have been in the best position to deal with it, having the financial power to spend more across all different categories .The E and Y  report rBased on Yelp online reviews from January–June 2020, Luo and Xu  found ouDespite the fact that restaurants reopened in May with capacity limitations and social-distancing guidelines, patrons were found to have a generally good view of their eating experiences. In June, sentiments regarding food and place hit an all-time high, indicating that the restaurants were doing an excellent job of maintaining consistency in their performance criteria. One potential recommendation to boost the customers’ good feelings about ‘location’ might be if the restaurateurs provided ample parking to accommodate the customers. Furthermore, having outside seating may make it easier for consumers to locate the restaurant and eat outside in the fresh air.Although the pandemic has had the greatest impact on full-service restaurants, altering societal attitudes and commercial environments will permanently transform all the different restaurant categories. Rather than the establishment of a new business model, the coronavirus may have the most dramatic influence on existing operators’ services.Hospitality businesses are expected to make substantial changes to the way they operate in the COVID-19 business environment in order to ensure employee and customer health and safety and enhance the customers’ willingness to patronize their businesses .The phantom kitchens would be the food-truck counterpart of COVID-19 . Hundreds of ghost kitchens have emerged in the last year, either as part of established restaurant chains or as stand-alone businesses, estimated to reach an almost USD 1 trillion commercial potential by 2030 .Operators from the limited, as well as the full-service, spectrum are looking forward to a return to dine-in business. Even models that place a large focus on in-person encounters claim that customer demand for off-premises services will persist long beyond COVID-19.In the restaurant sector, different types of restaurants will soon have less to do with operations and more to do with establishing a specific feeling and brand identity. It has now become mandatory to break down what dining really is, paying particular attention to a guest’s needs and their willingness to have whatever their heart desires, whenever they desire it.Many of the safety precautions implemented as a result of the pandemic will continue whenever businesses resume, and the fine-dining sector will maintain, and potentially extend, its focus on outdoor eating .Fine-dining establishments that are still closed, have limited visitor counts, or do not provide delivery/to-go options are under the most strain. Many of these concepts are still seeing 30% to 40% same-store sales drops and will likely only see a modest rebound over the next few months as macro forces begin to replace COVID-19 worries, and customers continue to be wary of dine-in experiences .Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, a big percentage of people (more than 50%) are unwilling to eat in a restaurant right away [According to the preliminary findings of longitudinal research undertaken by the editorial team of the ght away .The pandemic is far from over, and if the previous year has taught us anything, it is that no amount of preparation can prevent what is yet to come. It is too early to predict how the foodservice industry will develop, how restaurants will define themselves and differentiate themselves from competitors, and what consumer expectations will be. Whatever the case may be, the sector will rebound with a diverse range of cuisines, styles, service methods, and hospitality. The power to adapt is what will maintain the sector’s long-term survival. From an industry perspective, restaurants, which are highly reliant on face-to-face human interaction, have been forced to reconsider their marketing strategies and adapt to the “new normal”, engaging their customers in virtual communities through social media platforms .KAIAMO, known as the ultimate fine-dining culinary experience, renowned for luxury and sophistication, as well as the artistic plating and exquisite taste, was one of the first restaurants in Bucharest to respond to the changes in consumer behaviour and adapt their business model to the new context, shifting from luxurious in-restaurant dining to dishes that are suitable for take-away and delivery. Soon after the instauration of lockdown in Romania, the restaurant used their Instagram page to announce that the brand is now “Reborn. Refined. Redefined” . Soon afThe Artist, another renowned fine-dining restaurant analysed in the present paper, is another example of a business that has adapted to the new customer behaviour. As a result of the lockdown, the restaurant launched a new menu, specifically designed for home delivery. Moreover, a special home-delivery Christmas menu has also been designed, aiming to bring the luxury experience specific to their restaurant into the safe environment of their customers’ homes . The conKAIAMO and The Artist are proof that luxury restaurants have found ways to manage the crisis caused by the pandemic by adopting their business models to the new rules and regulations, as well as to the more hesitant and worried behaviour of their customers. ,44 GivenIn order to explore how the customer sentiment evolved over the period, the analysis was based on the online reviews collected for 5 fine-dining restaurants from Bucharest, using the following criteria: the top 100 Restaurants in Bucharest and those ranked $$$$ on TripAdvisor, namely The Artist, Relais & Chateaux Le Bistrot Francais, Casa di David, Kaiamo, and L’Atelier. The sample of reviews extracted from TripAdvisor through web-scrapping is formed from a total of 1106 reviews, the earliest review being from 19 May 2010, while the latest dates from 8 March 2021. The timeframes are considered to be the periods from 2010–2019 (for pre-COVID-19 pandemic) and 2020–the present (during the pandemic). The research will take into account a comparative analysis of consumer sentiment for these two periods. The sample of reviews extracted from TripAdvisor through web-scrapping consists of a total of 1106 reviews for five restaurants, the earliest review being from 19 May 2010, while the latest dates from 8 March 2021. The evolution of the total number of reviews per month highlighted a continuous increase in the number of reviews from 2010 until the end of 2018, with, at the end of 2018, a sharp decline for the last period .The distribution of reviews per restaurant revealed that Casa di David is the oldest luxury restaurant while Kaiamo is the newest restaurant, with reviews starting from 2018 . AnalysiComparing the consistency of reviews before the pandemic (until 2019) and during the pandemic (2020–March 2021), the research reveals a sharp decline in client reviews as a result of the strict measures imposed by the pandemic—measures that also included closing down restaurants.When customers leave feedback—whether it is to complain or leave a flattering review—there is always an underlying emotion. Having access to the right data at the right time can be a game-changer when it comes to making decisions that boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.Online reviews are still as crucial as ever during COVID-19. During the COVID-19 crisis, timely online reviews might assist potential customers in getting the most up-to-date information about how a restaurant is running. A single poor review might discourage potential customers, making it much more difficult for a food business to survive the COVID-19 crisis.Online reviews have become one of today’s most powerful marketing tools, influencing customer behaviour with an astonishing 91% of 18–34-year-old consumers claiming that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations ,46. ConsFrom the customers’ perspective, online reviews empower them to express their opinion, providing social proof to other potential clients . From anPublished literature clearly reveals a division when it comes to the reliability of online customer reviews. On the one hand, the role of customer reviews as rich material is acknowledged, complementing or substituting for existing information sources, whilst on the other hand, they can express the subjective opinion of a limited sample of customers .Online reviews are an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy in the digital age, providing outside perspectives on products and services. While positive reviews can drive revenue and build a trustworthy reputation, negative reviews, or the absence of reviews, can do the opposite. Understanding the importance of reviews, as well as how to leverage them to boost the business can be a critical way to get ahead in the competitive e-commerce marketplace and be positioned miles ahead of the competition. Therefore, even if there are pros and cons, we decided to use the online reviews from TripAdvisor as the basis for this research paper. A study conducted in partnership with Ipsos MORI polled over 23,000 TripAdvisor users from 12 markets, “across hotel, restaurant and attraction reviews, revealing that more than four out of five (85%) participants report that the reviews they read on TripAdvisor accurately reflect their experience, and 86% agree that TripAdvisor makes them feel more confident in their booking decisions . MoreoveThe research methodology combines elements from two relevant mining analyses—content and sentiment analyses—in order to explore customer sentiment in both the pre-pandemic and the pandemic periods, highlighting which words of emotional and opinion content are important to customers, analysing how consumer emotions evolved in these two periods in relation to restaurant demand in the Romanian fine-dining industry.On the one hand, content analysis is a technique that extracts worthwhile information and represents a solution for the unstructured data. It represents a method of systematic research designed to analyse and infer text, exploring the meanings of different words, themes, or concepts based on word-cloud analysis. Word clouds are visualizations that display words and word frequency to gain an understanding of what consumers specifically like or dislike about a location.On the other hand, the sentiment analysis revealed the emotional tone behind the words used to understand the attitudes, opinions, and emotions and extracted insights from the social data.When human readers approach a text, the understanding of the emotional intent of words is used to infer whether a section of text is positive or negative. The text is considered as a combination of individual words and the sentiment content of the whole text as the sum of the sentiment content of the individual words. Certain emotions are strongly related to specific words. In the sentiment analysis, the proportions of the words that have positive connotations or negative connotations, or are neutral, present interest, and an exploration is made of how many words in a text are also in a predefined list of words associated with a certain sentiment. Within the paper, we have applied sentiment analysis using unsupervised learning, in which the content is characterized by given words or dictionaries; we used the AFINN lexicon dictionary in R software, developed by Finn Årup Nielsen, for a list of words which consists of 2477 coded words and word scores ranging from −5 (very negative) to +5 (very positive). As preliminary steps, AFINN preprocessed the text by removing the punctuation and converted all the words to lower case before analyzing it. One of the drawbacks of using the raw AFINN score is that the longer texts may yield higher values simply because they contain more words. To avoid that issue, we divided the score by the number of words in the text.In order to explore how customer sentiments evolved during the pandemic and to explore potential changes over time, the first step implied the computation of an average sentiment score for both periods, pre-pandemic and pandemic, using the formula:t-test in order to highlight reliable change in the average sentiment in both periods, as well as a two-sample, difference-of-proportions t-test to highlight significant differences in terms of positivity and negativity between both periods.Each review was given a sentiment score based on how positive or negative the review was. The final sentiment score ranged between −5 to 5, with the assigning of the following sentiment categories: neutral for a score ranging from −1 to 1, positive for a score ranging from 1 to 2.5, very positive for 2.5 to 5, negative for a score ranging from −1 to −2.5, and very negative from −2.5 to −5. In the second step, based on the values of the average sentiment score, we applied the Welch two-sample The sentiment analysis can experience some difficulty in understanding a few intricacies of human language—polarity, sarcasm, emojis, comparative sentences, or double negatives—referring to many in-between terms, such as “not so bad” or “kind of good”, which imply average emotion (mid-polarity), and usually, the sentiment analysis fails to pick up on these emotions. Moreover, sentiment analysis is not able to detect any sarcasm in the comments, it being difficult for the tool to detect the real context behind the sentence, or a double negative, which turns the sentence into a positive.All analyses were developed using libraries tm, tidyte xt, quanteda, tidyverse, corpus, textmineR, tidyr, Rweka, wordcloud2, igraph, ggraph, widyr, stats, ldatuning, stm, readr, readtext, reshape2, ape, and dendextend in R statistical software .Customers frequently leave reviews to describe their experiences, which can be key indicators of what specific problems a business is having. Being able to comprehend thousands of reviews through customer sentiment analysis can help identify patterns and behaviors to help improve a restaurant’s performance.In order to identify the ways in which customers describe their fine-dining restaurant experience in general as well as in the pre-pandemic and during the pandemic (RQ1), the word-cloud analysis revealed that the most common words characterizing all fine-dining restaurants from our sample are: “food”, “restaurant”, “service”, “Bucharest”, “experience”, “menu”, “wine”, and “excellent” .the words characterizing the fine-dining restaurants pre-pandemic have been “food”, “service”, “restaurant”, “Bucharest”, “experience”, “menu”, and “wine”;during the pandemic, it can be observed that even if the restaurants registered a sharp decline in the total number of reviews because of the restrictions and lockdown, the words characterizing the fine-dining restaurants remain almost the same, namely “food”, “restaurant”, “service”, “menu”, “dishes”, “experience”, “Bucharest”, “tasting”, “staff”, or “chef” Therefore, the fine-dining experience in a pandemic is more likely to be associated with the quality of the dishes and also with the quality of service.Analysing the distribution of the most positive and negative words before and during the pandemic, the following can be highlighted :the wordSentiment analysis provides a way to understand the attitudes and opinions expressed in texts. Analysing the whole sample of reviews, it is possible to highlight that the most common negative word is “expensive”, followed by “disappointed”, “dessert”, “bad”, “pricey”, and “cold” .At the opposite pole, there are the most common positive words for the entire sample, namely “excellent”, “nice”, “amazing”, “recommend”, “delicious”, “friendly”, “perfect”, “beautiful”, “wonderful”, or “fine” .if before the pandemic, the most common negative word was “expensive”, followed by “disappointed”, “dessert”, “bad”; during the pandemic these were replaced by “bad”, accompanied by “dessert”, “rude”, and “steep”;in terms of the most common positive words, before the pandemic these were “excellent”, “nice”, “amazing”, and they remained the same during the pandemic .In order to respond to RQ2, a comparative analysis of the word clouds before and during the pandemic in terms of the most common positive and negative words reveals that :if beforIt is also worth investigating how customer emotions evolved in terms of the most common words contributing to the positive and negative sentiments in the pre-pandemic period vs. the pandemic period  in orderBy doing so, one can clearly observe that prior to the pandemic the most common positive words were “nice”, “excellent”, and “amazing” and that they preserve their meaning even during the pandemic. If before the pandemic we identified words such as “expensive”, “disappointed”, “dessert” as the most commonly used negative words, during the pandemic we found words such as “bad”, “terrible”, and “steep”.From the positive word clouds, it can be observed that the fine-dining experience continues to be defined by the same attributes, with the customers acknowledging that the experience is nice, excellent, and amazing, as those are the largest words in the cloud. However, knowledge gained from the negative word cloud may be more insightful. Before the pandemic it can be observed that some of the larger words include “expensive”, “disappointed” and “dessert”. If people are using the word “dessert” in their reviews, it may indicate that many customers experienced some issues with the dessert, being disappointed by the quality or finding it too expensive. During the pandemic one can observe an accentuation of the negative feeling, emphasized through the usage of words such as “bad”, “terrible”, “steep”, also revealing issues related to prices.t-test were explored. Thus, the modal sentiment (the most frequent sentiment), even if characterized by a small decrease, was slightly positive from an average of 2.03 in the pre-pandemic to almost 1.49 during the pandemic, revealing a decrease in the degree of positivity  being smaller than a 1% significant level. Additionally, the difference in the ratios is for positivity 0.157, meaning that the pre-pandemic period has a 0.157 higher ratio of positive sentiments compared to the pandemic period. For the negativity degree, the pre-pandemic negative ratio is 0.087 higher than for the pandemic; this difference is also statistically highly significant.The empirical results of the Therefore, we can conclude that the level of positivity slightly decreased during the pandemic, and so did the level of negativity. A potential explanation for this finding can rely on the fact that positive and negative emotions occur concurrently in a consumption experience  as the oThe ambiance was the attribute with the largest improvement in guest sentiment, in conjunction with the change to the growth of off-premises sales as dine-in activity fell alongside the increase in COVID-19 cases. Traditionally, off-premises food sentiment has always been lower than dine-in. All these could be reasons for the decrease in the positivity between both periods. During the pandemic, safety remains the customers’ primary concern and meeting or exceeding expectations for safety can contribute to positive feedback online.COVID-19 has been the restaurant industry’s greatest challenge to date, as well as a severe public-health issue. Never before have such a large number of restaurants been forced to close, some of which will never reopen. Consumer demand will most certainly not grow instantly when restrictions are eased, according to early signs from China and other nations where the epidemic appears to be under control. Restaurants that prepare ahead and are ready to adapt and develop their business model in accordance with the “new normal” will be in a better position to restore pre-crisis sales levels. The study examined online reviews on Romanian fine-dining restaurants, discovering the underlying aspects related to the consumer experiences in these restaurants through content analysis and examining how the customer sentiment evolved over time, based on the results of sentiment analysis.The crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak is still an ongoing issue and the foreseeable future is uncertain. Whilst the data clearly indicate that the global economy is entering a recovery stage, scholars and industry experts claim that at the moment the “global trends” and “consumer trends” are nothing but predictions as no one can know for sure how industries, as well as consumers, will re-adapt to “normality” after witnessing the huge pandemic shock.As expected, during the pandemic there has been a sharp decline in client reviews, as a result of the strict measures imposed by the pandemic—measures that also included closing down restaurants. However, Casa di David has been the most constant in receiving reviews, while The Artist has been the restaurant with the highest number of reviews.In describing the customers’ fine-dining restaurant experience, it can be mentioned that this experience is mostly related to words such as “food”, “restaurant”, “service”, “Bucharest”, “experience”, “menu”, “wine”, and “excellent”. If we explore this experience in a comparative way, before and during the pandemic, it can be highlighted that the fine-dining experience before the pandemic is characterised by “food”, “service”, “restaurant”, “Bucharest”, “experience”, “menu”, and “wine”, while in the pandemic the words characterizing the fine-dining restaurants remain almost the same, namely “food”, “restaurant”, “service”, “menu”, “dishes”, “experience”, “Bucharest”, “tasting”, “staff”, or “chef”. Therefore, the fine-dining experience in a pandemic is more likely to be associated with the quality of the dishes as well as with the quality of service.In terms of negative sentiments, the fine-dining experience could be characterised before the pandemic by “expensive”, “disappointed”, “dessert”, “bad”, while during the pandemic these have been replaced by “bad”, accompanied by “dessert”, “rude”, and “steep”.In terms of positivity, the most common positive words in the pre-pandemic were “excellent”, “nice”, and “amazing”, and they remained almost the same during the pandemic .The overall consumer sentiment in the direction of the restaurants analyzed is positive. The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected the Romanian restaurant business, as shown by the radical decrease in the number of reviews.Even while the restaurants continued to operate through delivery systems, it appears that this was insufficient to maintain their customers. The sentiment research found that throughout the epidemic the consumers’ attitudes about restaurants deteriorated. In this sense, the consumers seem to be less satisfied with the restaurant’s services than before the pandemic. This is another thing that the restaurants had difficulties in when adapting their operations for the pandemic (Tardin ).Managers in the food service business will benefit from the findings of this study.The results of the content and sentiment analysis clearly highlighted the most relevant aspects that consumers express interest in with regard to restaurants, showing paths for managers to facilitate and improve their restaurant’s operations. The most common element mentioned by the customers is related to the price, which is associated with the lowest associated customer sentiment. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 context changed the socioeconomic environment in which restaurants operate. Consumers are evaluating the delivery aspect, and managers should keep up with this new demand.This research is one of the few types of research utilizing text mining together with sentiment analysis to examine consumer sentiments about the Romanian fine-dining industry, especially with regard to understanding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on this sector.Despite this paper’s contributions, one key question remains open: is there going to be a fundamental change in customer behavior towards the food service business after the epidemic ends and everything returns to ‘normal’?A first limitation of this research is the small number of reviews of the pandemic period. Collecting more data from this period can significantly change the results. The review website selection is also a limitation of this paper. The selection of only TripAdvisor could induce a platform bias. Therefore, future research can investigate the impact of COVID-19 on other platforms as well. Another limitation was the number of restaurants chosen.Last, but not least, the present article focused on discussing consumer sentiment changes during the pandemic (2020–present), in comparison to the pre-pandemic period (2010–2019). However, with the world economy now entering a recovery stage, consumer behaviour will be subject to periodic change, depending on the progress of the pandemic as well as the ability of individuals to adapt to the ever-changing “new normality”. As a result, year-by-year analysis is recommended for the next five years in order to gain a deeper understanding of what the post-pandemic consumer looks like.Future directions of research include developing the analysis further to include restaurants of different price points, located in different cities in Romania, in order to gain a deeper contextual understanding of the current consumer sentiment in relation to the restaurant industry at a national level.


The last decade has borne witness to the rise of social media, predominantly used by teenagers and young adults. This study’s main objective was to investigate the association between how often one compares their physical appearance to that of the people they follow on social media, and one’s body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. (2) Method: A sample composed of 1331 subjects aged 15 to 35 (mean age = 24.2), including 1138 subjects recruited from the general population and 193 patients suffering from eating disorders, completed an online questionnaire assessing social media use . This questionnaire incorporated two items originating from the Eating Disorder Inventory Scale (Body Dissatisfaction: EDI-BD and Drive for Thinness: EDI-DT). (3) Results: We found an association between the frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people followed on social media and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Interestingly, the level of education was a confounding factor in this relationship, while BMI was not. (4) Discussion: The widespread use of social media in teenagers and young adults could increase body dissatisfaction as well as their drive for thinness, therefore rendering them more vulnerable to eating disorders. We should consequently take this social evolution into account, including it in general population prevention programs and in patients’ specific treatment plans. Body image is defined as one’s perception, thoughts, and emotions revolving around one’s own body. It is the depiction of one’s body representation, including their mirror reflection, and it reflects social constructs, which depend on a society’s culture and norms. This conception is created using body ideals, substantially communicated via media, family, and peers.For the last 30 years, media have been over-exposing people to thinness ideals, starting from a young age , turningHowever, even though this social pressure is indisputable, not all people are vulnerable to it. It is the degree with which they will relate to these thinness standards, namely how they internalize this ideal, that will help to predict the risk of developing an ED . Indeed,Social comparison, combined with the internalization of ideals, is one of the main mechanisms participating in one’s body image perception. These two mechanisms are instrumental in developing body dissatisfaction ,18,19. SAlthough historically speaking, body norms have been mainly conveyed through traditional media , the last few years have borne witness to the rise and expansion of social media use. The term “social media” refers to every website and online mobile app with user-generated content. They enable their users to participate in online exchanges, broadcast self-made content, and join virtual communities. They are mostly used by teenagers and young adults, and the most common ones are Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Several studies have suggested that social media exposure could foster body dissatisfaction and result in risky eating behaviors by broadcasting thinness ideals individuals thus long for ,24,25. AThere is, to this day, a lack of scientific data, and in particular French data, about the association between the use of social media and risky eating behaviors . In thisThis is a transversal observational study. Participants had to answer a questionnaire available online. Since it was an investigation involving the health field, but with an objective that did not involve the developing of biological or medical knowledge, it not fit in the French Jardé legal framework . Data collection was made anonymously, was digitalized, and was realized outside of a care setting. Answering the questionnaire was interpreted as consent for data use, as it displayed that the results would be used in a survey, but that the participation would be anonymous, and that there were no data that would lead them to be recognized should they decide to participate.The study’s general population participants were enlisted via a social media publication  and via posters in gyms. These posters were also sent to health workers with a practice in Nantes and in different French cities , who were tasked with informing their ED patients about this study. The Fédération Française Anorexie Boulimie , which is an association regrouping professionals working in the ED field, helped to broadcast the questionnaire using mailing lists, social media, and websites. Recruitment occurred between September 2019 and December 2019.The inclusion criteria were as follows: using their Facebook and/or Instagram account daily and being 15 to 35 years old. This age range was chosen in light of the current literature, which shows that use of social media and body image concerns involved mainly teenagers and young people ,29. MoreThe questionnaire’s first part was designed to register sex, age, degrees, and current height and weight to measure body mass index (BMI). The questionnaire’s second part interrogated the participants about their use of social media: platform, frequency (number of uses per day), time spent (hours per day), frequency of comparing one’s physical appearance to that of people followed on social media, and the frequency of posting “selfies” (a photograph that you take of yourself). The questionnaire’s third part evaluated body image perception, using the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2) scale, translated and adapted in French ,31. It iThe questionnaire’s last part aimed at screening ED, using the Sick-Control-One Stone-Fat-Food (SCOFF) self-questionnaire. It is a simple survey of 5 questions used to screen eating disorders in general population . The FreA descriptive statistical analysis was conducted for the entire sample. Continuous variables are described by means and standard deviations, while categorical variables are presented as numbers and percentages.t-test for quantitative variables , a Chi-squared test for qualitative variables , and Fisher exact test for multimodal qualitative variables whose theoretical headcount did not allow the use of the Chi-squared test (“posting selfies”).We asked all participants to complete the SCOFF questionnaire, so that they were sorted into two groups depending on their results: the “SCOFF+” group gathering all participants with a SCOFF score of 2 or over, and therefore with the risk of suffering from an ED, and the “SCOFF−” group gathering all participants with a SCOFF score under 2. These two groups were then compared based on all collected variables. We applied a Student’s Then, we looked for an association between the frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people followed on social media and the scores measured using the EDI Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness subscales. We thus performed two linear regressions with adjustment for two potential confounding factors (BMI and level of education). Confounding factor status was assessed by searching for an association of the two variables with EDI subscores on the one hand and with the frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people followed on social media on the other hand.p = 0.05 (α risk of 5%).The significance threshold for all these analyses was set at Statistical analyses were done using the SPSS software .In total, 1407 questionnaires were completed, and 1331 were analyzed. A total of 1138 subjects were from the general population, and 193 were ED patients recruited via health workers. Seventy-six completed questionnaires (5.4%) were excluded from the analysis because they did not match the age criteria or because their ED diagnosis was not communicated . The participants’ age ranged from 15 to 35 . Most were women (97.7%). They had, for the most part, a Bachelor’s degree. Mean BMI was 22.3 (σ = 4.2).Most participants declared using Facebook (93%) and Instagram (92.8%). Other social media were less frequently used: Snapchat (68.4%), Twitter (29.1%), and Tiktok (2.5%).ghost followers (bots or inactive accounts)” (65.4%). In total, 92.7% said that they used social media to “follow friends and acquaintances”, “follow healthy food content” (68%), “follow the news” (67%), and “follow fitness content” (61.2%). In total, 57.3% of participants had a private account and 42.7% an account open to the public. Users declared that they used social media mainly to “like posts” (82.7%) and to “observe content, as Regarding participants recruited via health workers for whom data were analyzed (N = 193), the most frequently reported ED was anorexia nervosa restricting type (41%), followed by anorexia nervosa purging type (28%), binge eating disorder (16%), bulimia nervosa (12%), and unspecified feeding or eating disorder (9%). n = 953 in the SCOFF+ group; n = 378 in the SCOFF− group). These groups were compared using all described variables, and the results are showcased in The final sample was sorted into two groups according to the SCOFF’s results , a significantly higher frequency of comparing their physical appearance to that of people they followed, and of posting selfies. p < 0.001), and they more frequently had BMI both in the lower and higher ranges. In addition, they declared having significantly higher EDI-BD and EDI-DT scores than SCOFF− subjects , suggesting they might suffer from an ED. This questions whether a more systematic ED screening should be done in teenage and young adult populations, which are ED’s main targets. Several studies in which teenagers were interviewed have shown that they often are dissatisfied with their bodies, feeling like they are “too fat”, and most of them have already followed a diet ,48,49. TThere are several limits to this study. First, it is a transversal study, which cannot prove the existence of a causal relationship between the studied variables. Therefore, longitudinal studies are necessary in finding out how this association works. Second, the online questionnaire was not designed to collect data that could be considered as indicators of individual or family vulnerabilities for ED, which did not allow for stratified analyses. Third, measuring the time spent on social media and how often participants used it was done through self-reported data, which could induce a declaration bias, thus limiting the data’s precision. Future studies could use technologies such as data tracking  in order to have more precise data and thus be more confident in the data’s reliability. Fourth, the participants’ recruitment induced a selection bias. Indeed, having used daily use of social media as an inclusion criterion leads to selecting a certain type of population and renders irrelevant any extrapolation to the general population. Moreover, recruiting via gyms may have led to selecting individuals with a specific concern for their body image. We can assume that these subjects, who paid specific attention to their physical appearance, might have certain demands concerning themselves, which might involve body dissatisfaction and an exaggerated drive for thinness. The daily use of social networks could also be a reflection of excessive body concerns, which could lead to more body dissatisfaction and a more pronounced drive for thinness compared to subjects who are less exposed to these kinds of media. Fifth, our participants recruited via health workers may not be representative of all ED patients for several reasons: ED diagnosis was self-reported, anorexia nervosa restricting type was overrepresented in our sample, and the most severe patients may not be psychologically available to participate in a study like this one. Finally, the SCOFF questionnaire is a screening tool and not a diagnostic one. It does not enable discriminating between anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder among participants, but we can assume that all types of ED were present in the SCOFF+ group, as the participants in this group more frequently had BMI both in the lower and higher ranges.However, these limits are balanced by the study’s strengths. First, the sample rallied a significant number of participants, and their sorting into two groups after ED screening was quite proportionate, which ensured the statistical analyses’ power. Second, EDs were screened using a validated tool for the general population, and the Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness dimensions were evaluated using a self-questionnaire whose psychometric characteristics have been validated in clinical populations. Finally, to the extent of our knowledge, this type of study had never been conducted in France, thus bringing forth unprecedented data.This study’s results open new avenues for clinicians to explore social media use and cognitive pathways in ED. Indeed, social media exposure and, in particular, exposure to edited and idealized images could contribute to inaccurate thought processes about body image, internalizing what is socially valued on social media as a personal goal. Since we know that cognitive pathways play an important part in ED development and continuation , it seemWhen considering the general population, when we see how important social comparison based on physical appearance is in developing body dissatisfaction, prevention programs could be useful. It seems relevant to encourage teenagers, particularly those with the tendency to compare themselves to their peers, to evaluate their body using health criteria instead of using other peoples’ bodies as a standard. Additionally, it would be interesting to intervene by deconstructing the “ideal body” myth, with the goal of diminishing the comparison to “idols”. Finally, it seems relevant to inform people that some role models’ BMI and body type are not representative of those of most of the population and that trying to reach their body type could be harmful. ED screening in this population should thus be more systematic.To summarize, we found an association between the frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people followed on social media and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Interestingly, the level of education was a confounding factor in this relationship, while BMI was not. The widespread use of social media in teenagers and young adults could increase body dissatisfaction as well as their drive for thinness, therefore rendering them more vulnerable to eating disorders.