ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, research has shown a negative relationship between social media use and body image. For women, these adverse effects tend to result from viewing content that promotes thinness as the ideal body type. Attempts to mitigate these adverse effects using disclaimers have failed. In the current study, we tested whether interspersing thin-ideal content with body-positive posts can mitigate the impact of thin-ideal content. The current study had six conditions. In three conditions, participants were exposed to 20 images of either thin-ideal, body-positive, or nature (control) images from Instagram. In the remaining three conditions, we interspersed the 20 images from the thin-deal condition with either 1 (i.e., 1:20 condition), 2 (i.e., 1:10 condition), or 4 (i.e., 1:5 condition) body-positive posts. For all six conditions, body satisfaction, body appreciation, appearance self-esteem, positive affect, and negative affect were measured before and after exposure. Our results demonstrated that irrespective of frequency, interspersing thin-ideal content with body-positive content did not mitigate decreases in body satisfaction, body appreciation, appearance self-esteem, or positive affect. Our failure to mitigate the negative impact of thin-ideal content adds to a growing body of work demonstrating that combating the impact of thin-ideal content on Instagram is extremely difficult.
Subject(s)
Body Image , Social Media , Female , Humans , Body Image/psychology , Self Concept , Thinness , Personal SatisfactionABSTRACT
The body-positive movement (#bodypositive) champions body acceptance by celebrating a diverse - visual - array of body types and shapes online. Sparked out of collective resistance to unrealistic bodies on social media, the #bodypositive community has assembled a considerable following: having now surpassed one billion engagements on Instagram. To mark this milestone, we highlight the problem, the promise, and the peril of image-focused movements on Instagram. On balance, we argue #bodypositive content on Instagram likely has a positive impact. As the movement continues to grow though, advocates can look to strengthen the content's positive impact with some careful, research-informed, messaging adjustments.