Body Image and Social Media - An important area for wellbeing and mental health. Presentation at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, UK, for Mental Health Awareness Week.

2.  Social media & mental health
 Research: Social media & body image
 Photo / video digital manipulation
 Selfies
 The “ideal” female body
 Male body image
 Dancers, body image & social media
 Body positivity / neutrality
 Are you in control?
 Can you recognise digitally altered pictures?

3.  An issue that cuts across gender, age,
sexuality and ethnicity
 From an early age, you are bombarded with
images that define what an ‘ideal body’
looks like.
 The more comfortable you are with your
body, the greater your overall wellbeing,
and the less likely you are to engage in
destructive behaviours
Mark Rowland, Mental Health Foundation CEO

4.  Social comparison
 Feelings of
inadequacy
 Amount of time spent
comparing with
others
 Believing the
accuracy of what is
presented as reality
 Seek out life-
affirming content

5. Do social media cause negative feelings
about appearance, or are people with
negative feelings about their appearance
more likely to use social media?

6. 30 years ago:
 How did women in
media look like?
 How did women in
real life look like?
Three common forms
used in media:
 Body changes
 Face changes
 Skin colour changes

7.  Social media
 Advertisements
 Videos
 Films
“We must stop exposing impressionable
children and teenagers to advertisements
portraying models with body types only
attainable with the help of photo editing
software.”Dr. Barbara McAneny, AMA

8.  Are we internalising an
unrealistic, unattainable,
fake "ideal" as
"beautiful"?
 Big business selling
“ideal beauty" products.
 People believing they
are happy, loved,
healthy, worthy because
of their appearance.

9.  Taken for others to see, or never shared
 Self(ie)-objectification
 Looking at the photos, imagining how
others see them
 Selecting, comparing to internalised
ideals
 Editing, checking reactions, counting
"likes"
 Wanting to look like the edited photo
 Focusing on APPEARANCE

10.  Filtering
 Airbrushing
 Body editing apps:
changing body
shape, weight, height
 Face editing apps:
complexion, lips,
noses, eyes, ears,
face lines, jawlines

11.  People requesting medical procedures to
resemble their digital selves
 Filtered images “blurring the line of reality
and fantasy” could be triggering body
dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a mental
health condition where people become
fixated on imagined defects in their
appearance
Susruthi Rajanala et al

12.  The average female
weight has increased,
but women in the
media appear thinner
 Muscle definition is
now added to an
already impossibly thin
ideal
 Body dissatisfaction,
lower self-esteem,
worse mood,
restrictive eating or
vomiting

13.  Images and videos
showing workouts or
isolated parts of the
body
 Guilt-inducing
images and
messages
 Emphasising
appearance rather
than health

14.  "Inspirational", to achieve
fitness and health
 Is what the pictures show
attainable?
 Are you feeling
motivated, or intimidated
/ worried about how you
look / ashamed of your
body / anxious /
depressed?
 Is there a hidden
advertisement?
 Are you asked to buy
something? (products –
services)

15.  Thin Is In? Think
Again: The Rising
Importance of
Muscularity in the
Thin Ideal Female
Body (2018)

16.  Self-compassion,
self-kindness
 No body shame!
 Bodies are not
objects!

17.  Men under pressure
to achieve the
‘perfect’ body
 "Super-hero" effect
 "Fat-shaming"
 "Bulking up"

18.  Steroids
 Hair loss, height perception, skin, face
symmetry, other body parts
 Male body image, far more complex than
just “muscle”

19.  Dancers or
"influencers"?
 Body "tricks" in
social media
 How are young
dancers affected?

20.  “Media influence and
body dissatisfaction
in preadolescent
ballet dancers and
non-physically active
girls”: Body
dissatisfaction,
internalisation of an
athletic body ideal

21.  Bodies of all types
 "Real" vs. "edited" bodies
 Self-compassion quotes
 Body functionality instead of just body
appearance
 Body Neutrality: What the body *does*,
not how it appears

22.  Control what you view
 Choose who to follow
 Think about your "likes"
 Consider body positive /
body neutral content
 Know the pros and cons
of body positivity / body
neutrality

24.  Bozsik, F., Whisenhunt, B., Hudson, D., Bennett, B. and Lundgren, J. (2018). Thin Is
In? Think Again: The Rising Importance of Muscularity in the Thin Ideal Female
Body. Sex Roles, 79(9-10), pp.609-615.
 Cavazos-Rehg, P., Krauss, M., Costello, S., Kaiser, N., Cahn, E., Fitzsimmons-Craft,
E. and Wilfley, D. (2019). “I just want to be skinny.”: A content analysis of tweets
expressing eating disorder symptoms. PLOS ONE, 14(1).
 Cohen, R., Fardouly, J., Newton-John, T. and Slater, A. (2019). #BoPo on Instagram:
An experimental investigation of the effects of viewing body positive content on
young women’s mood and body image. New Media & Society.
 Cohen, R., Irwin, L., Newton-John, T. and Slater, A. (2019). #bodypositivity: A
content analysis of body positive accounts on Instagram. Body Image, 29, pp.47-
57.
 Cohen, R., Newton-John, T. and Slater, A. (2017). The relationship between
Facebook and Instagram appearance-focused activities and body image concerns
in young women. Body Image, 23, pp.183-187.
 Dantas, A., Alonso, D., Sánchez-Miguel, P. and del Río Sánchez, C. (2018). Factors
Dancers Associate with their Body Dissatisfaction. Body Image, 25, pp.40-47.
 Fardouly, J. and Vartanian, L. (2016). Social Media and Body Image Concerns:
Current Research and Future Directions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 9, pp.1-5.
 Hogue, J. and Mills, J. (2019). The effects of active social media engagement with
peers on body image in young women. Body Image, 28, pp.1-5.

25.  Holland, G. and Tiggemann, M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use
of social networking sites on body image and disordered eating outcomes. Body
Image, 17, pp.100-110.
 Mills, J., Musto, S., Williams, L. and Tiggemann, M. (2018). “Selfie” harm: Effects on
mood and body image in young women. Body Image, 27, pp.86-92.
 Nerini, A. (2015). Media influence and body dissatisfaction in preadolescent ballet
dancers and non-physically active girls. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 20,
pp.76-83.
 Simpson, C. and Mazzeo, S. (2016). Skinny Is Not Enough: A Content Analysis of
Fitspiration on Pinterest. Health Communication, 32(5), pp.560-56
 Swami, V. and Harris, A. (2012). Dancing Toward Positive Body Image? Examining
Body-Related Constructs with Ballet and Contemporary Dancers at Different
Levels. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 34(1), pp.39-52.
 Veldhuis, J., Alleva, J., Bij de Vaate, A., Keijer, M. and Konijn, E. (2018). Me, my
selfie, and I: The relations between selfie behaviors, body image, self-
objectification, and self-esteem in young women. Psychology of Popular Media
Culture.
 Walter, O. and Yanko, S. (2018). New observations on the influence of dance on
body image and development of eating disorders. Research in Dance Education,
19(3), pp.240-251.