Social Media Awareness, Influence, and Engagement as Predictors of Sustainable and Healthy Food Purchase Intention Among Young Consumers in Mysuru

Social media has become a common source of information for young consumers who want to learn about sustainable and healthy food products. This study explores how social media awareness, social media influence, and social media engagement are related to young consumers’ purchase intention toward these products in Mysuru, Karnataka, India. A quantitative descriptive research design was used, and data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 249 consumers aged 18–35 years. Participants were selected using convenience sampling. The data were analyzed using SPSS, with simple linear regression used to examine the individual relationships and multiple linear regression used to assess the combined contribution of the three social media dimensions. The findings show that all three dimensions have positive and statistically significant relationships with purchase intention. Together, they explain 51.0% of the variation in purchase intention, with social media engagement making the largest reported contribution. These results suggest that food marketers should focus not only on raising awareness but also on sharing useful information and encouraging consumers to interact with their content. However, the study is limited to a convenience sample from Mysuru, and it examines consumers’ stated purchase intentions rather than their actual buying behavior. The exact regression coefficients and some model statistics were not available in the supplied draft, so they should be verified using the original SPSS output before the paper is submitted.