Suchergebnisse

Body-positive content on social media aims to challenge mainstream beauty ideals and encourage acceptance and appreciation of all body types. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of viewing body-positive Instagram posts on young women's mood and body image. Participants were 195 young women (18–30 years old) who were randomly allocated to view either body-positive, thin-ideal, or appearance-neutral Instagram posts. Results showed that brief exposure to body positive posts was associated with improvements in young women's positive mood, body satisfaction and body appreciation, relative to thin-ideal and appearance-neutral posts. In addition, both thin-ideal and body-positive posts were associated with increased self-objectification relative to appearance-neutral posts. Finally, participants showed favourable attitudes towards the body positive accounts with the majority being willing to follow them in the future. It was concluded that body-positive content may offer a fruitful avenue for improving young women's body image, although further research is necessary to fully understand the effects on self-objectification.

Gay men's greater body dissatisfaction, compared to straight men's, has been explained as a result of gay men's more 'appearance potent' subculture. This study aimed to critically appraise this explanation by assessing images of men and women for their physical characteristics and objectification across 8 popular gay and straight men's dating and porn websites. 1415 images of men and 741 images of women across the website's main pages were coded. Results showed that the gay men's websites featured more images of men that were appearance-ideal, nude, and sexualised in comparison to the straight men's websites. With the converse true for straight men's websites. These results highlight the continuing need to develop and provide interventions that critique the appearance potency of popular media, particularly so for gay men.

Cross-sectional research suggests a small, inverse association between social media use and body satisfaction. However, less is known regarding prospective, bidirectional, or mediating effects. In line with sociocultural theory, this study used a three-wave design to examine direct and indirect effects between social media use and body satisfaction, via thin-ideal and muscular-ideal internalisation and social comparisons. Adolescents ( n = 1911; Mage = 14.27, SD = 1.08) were invited to complete three surveys over 1 year. Cross-lagged panel models indicated acceptable fit for two social media use operationalisations, with better fit statistics for the appearance-focused use rather than photo-based activities model. Despite largely no direct effects, indirect effects were found. Social comparisons mediated the relationships over time, whereby higher social media use predicted higher comparisons, which predicted lower body satisfaction. The reverse direction was also found. Gender invariance indicates that prevention aimed at reducing comparisons may be suitable for boys and girls.