Recent Research Findings in Social Media and Body Image
Posting selfies of your body, no matter how hot you think you are, is really not a good idea and there is growing research evidence supporting this injunction.
Objectification theory predicts that women are socially pressured to be inordinately aware on their physical appearance. Social media is the new technology for the cultural reinforcement of images and beliefs about women’s appearance and beauty standards. And its main tool is the “selfie.” Many people, especially young ones, are viewing graphic images of bodies on a daily basis and this media usage is growing at a startling rate. It is now thought that social media platforms which cater to the posting and/or exchange of body images increase body unhappiness because they repeatedly expose viewers to bodies better than their own. This serves to demoralize a person, increase body dissatisfaction, and reinforce cultural ideals of an extremely lean and overly muscular ideal form for males and the ideal form for females of a thin body with large breasts and, more recently it seems, the popularization of large buttocks and extremely small waists.
Social media users do not merely take a self-portrait and then post it. They try out different poses, find the best angles, and endeavor to upload the best shot (Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011). A person who takes a selfie is both the camera’s subject and the behind-the-camera director (Marwick, 2015), Thus, selfies are inherently self-objectifying: the selfie-taker turns themself into an object to be looked at and evaluated (Fox et al., 2021).
Here are some research results to consider. You’ll immediately notice they come to very similar conclusions.
A study of 259 young women between the ages of 18 to 29 were scored for their social media use, eating problems, and body image disturbance. Greater selfie activities related to increased body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The more a media user objectifies her body, the more more she is vulnerable to body image disturbance. The conclusion is that social media photo activities rather than just perusing social media sites can negatively affect body image (Cohen, Newton-John, & Slater, 2018).
A recent study of 120 female users of social media with a median age of 19.87 were given the choice of either photographing themselves or an inanimate object after being told their pictures would be kept private or would be posted online on social media. Researchers then measured the women’s level of self-objectification, mood, and self-esteem. Selfie takers had higher self-objectification, more negative mood, and lower self-esteem compared to those who photographed objects (Fox et al., 2021).
A meta-analysis of 63 studies spanning 35,552 subjects using social media found a positive and significant relationship between social media use and body image disturbance. The age of the subject, country of origin, type of social media use, and body image dimension affected the relationship (Saiphoo & Vahedi, 2019).
A study from New Zealand examined the relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction in adults. It used a subject pool of 6,258 adults between 19 to 92 years old. These persons were scored for degree of social media use, body dissatisfaction, age, gender, Body-Mass Index, and other demographic variables between 2015 to 2019. A positive correlation was found between social media use and body image dissatisfaction. That is, more media use related to more body unhappiness. Most disturbing is the finding that those with higher body unhappiness were more prone to use social media (Marques et al., 2021).
Next is a study of 402 female college students. It examined the effects of social media comparisons with “slim-thick-“, “thin-“, and “fit-ideal” imagery on women’s body image. The slim-thick feminine body type is a recent arrival and popularized in mainstream culture by the Kardashian family. The type itself is not a Caucasian ideal. It was found that when social media viewers were examining body pictures that imposed body comparison evaluations then there was greater weight and appearance dissatisfaction and less overall body satisfaction. Those exposed to slim-thick imagery experienced more weight and appearance dissatisfaction and less body satisfaction than those in the thin-ideal condition. The body image disturbance was amplified by women who possessed moderate to high level of physical-appearance perfectionism particularly with the slim-thick body profile. This cultural change to a slim-thick body ideal may be just as detrimental, if not more so, to women’s body image than thin-ideal imagery (McComb & Mills, 2022).
And there is more. A meta-analysis of the research literature by three experts on body image came to several key conclusions about the relationship between social media and body image disturbance (Vandenbosch, Fardoul, & Tiggemann, 2022). First, there is a fast growth in social media platforms and researchers are playing catch up because they’ve mostly concentrated on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, but more have appeared recently and each has subtle variations from the others. For example, women who spend time on Instagram make more appearance-related comparisons regarding their bodies as opposed to women on Facebook. They also objectify their bodies more. The reasons for this is unclear. Photo-based platforms are deemed the worst because they entice viewers to post their own pictures. Their visual content leads to self-objectification while strengthening the internalization of cultural body ideals.
Then there is the nature of digital media itself. Graphic content is presented to viewers as being similar to traditional media, but digital media involves the viewer to create their own content. This causes viewers to post “selfies” casting their appearances in the best possible light. That is, they are fabricated fantasy images. This causes self-objectification and the intensification of cultural body ideals. These images are then approved or criticized by other viewers which means the poster places his or her self into a position of public reward or public humiliation.
Lastly, there was a study of Instagram influencers who push lingerie and bikini wear with overtly sexualized imagery (Prichard, Taylor, & Tiggemann, 2023). It measured the psychological impact of images of female Influencers dressed in either fashionable clothes or in lingerie/bikini garments while posed in a suggestive manner. Viewers were 230 women between the ages of 17 to 25 years. Viewing the sexualized images led to greater negative mood, body dissatisfaction, and appearance comparison than did viewing standard fashion images (Hendrickse et al., 2017).
One the Positive Side… If There is One
New social media has appeared with the expressed mission of making a positive difference in people’s lives and body relationships. One example is Fitspiration which claims to promote well-being and health, but mainly posts images of physically idealized and sexualized bodies thus making it an unhealthy environment for body image. Other sites based on the Body Positive Movement are making positive contributions, but more research is needed. Some sites actually lead to more self-objectification than viewing appearance-neutral content. Researchers of body positive sites have raised concerns about its content in that some of it is self-promoting, contains commercial messages, uses enhancing filters, and is sometimes sexually objectifying. In words, sites of this type may skew its posting in an unhealthy direction.
One study of focus group discussions with 38 grade school girls ages 12 to 14 who engage in high social media usage with Instagram and Snapchat being the most popular. Subjects tended to downplay or minimize the potential influence of social media by having them compare their bodies to others. Their attitudes were influenced by their parental relationships and school environments (Burnette, Kwitkowski, & Mazzeo, 2017). I, for one, take this particular set of findings with a large grain of salt. First, it is a very small subject sample, and it is not uncommon for subjects to lie about experiencing negative effects of some type especially when speaking in public. But I am encouraged by children sharing that they accept parental advice regarding body-related issues as well as their school systems exerting positive effects.
Closing Thoughts
The studies presented above are just a handful among a growing body of work that concludes social media viewing of bodies is harmful to personal body image. Here are some takeaways.
- Appearance-related social media usage in general is not associated with body image in young women, but engaging in photo activities on sites such as Facebook is related to body image issues.
- People who frequent Instagram accounts devoted to physical appearance tend to have body image issues.
- A generation of children are being conditioned into body image disturbance.
To put it plainly, social media causes body image disturbance. The question now becomes, But what can be done about it. Holistic healthcare practitioners, especially bodyworkers and clinical somatic psychotherapists, often see clients with body image disorder. It seems prudent to include social media interactions as part of the intake protocol regarding the client’s bodymind relationship.
Paul Shane, Ph.D., LMT
Director, Academic Content
References
Burnette, C., Kwitkowski, M., & Mazzeo, S. (2017). “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media:” A qualitative study of social media and body image in early adolescent girls. Body Image 23, p. 114-115.
Cohen, R., Newton-John, T., & Slater, A. (2018). ‘Selfie’-objectification: The role of selfies in self-objectification and disordered eating in young women. Computers in Human Behavior 79, p. 68-74.
Fox, J., Vendemia, M., Smith, M., & Brehm, N. (2021). Effects of taking selfies on women’s self-objectification, mood, self-esteem, and social aggression toward female peers. Body Image 36, p. 193-200.
Hendrickse, J., Arpan, L., Clayton, R., & Ridgway, J. (2017). Instagram and college women’s body image: Investigating the roles of appearance-related comparisons and intrasexual competition. Computers in Human Behavior 74, p. 92-100.
Marques, M., Paxton, S., McLean, S., Jarman, H., & Sibley, C. (2021). A prospective examination of relationships between social media use and body dissatisfaction in a representative sample of adults. Body Image 40, p. 1-11.
Marwick, A. (2015). Instafame: Luxury selfies in the attention economy. Public Culture 27(1), p. 137-160.
Papacharissi, Z. and Mendelson, A. (2011) Toward a new(er) sociability: Uses, gratifications and social capital on Facebook. In S. Papathanassopoulos, (Ed.), Media Perspectives for the 21st Century. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 212-230.
Prichard, I., Taylor, B., & Tiggemann, M. (2023). Comparing and self-objectifying: The effect of sexualized imagery posted by Instagram influencers on women’s body image. Body Image 46, p. 347-355.
Saiphoo, A. & Vahedi, Z. (2019). A meta-analytic review of the relationship between social media use and body image disturbance. Computers in Human Behavior 101, p. 259-275.
Vandenbosch, L., Fardouly, J., & Tiggemann, M. (2022). Social media and body image: Recent trends and future directions. Current Opinion in Psychology 45, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.12.002
Updated on 04-30-24.