Beth Bell's talk at the 1in4 Network's event: Eating Disorders, Social Media and Digital Technology Workshop.

1. Understanding the Diet &
Exercise Culture of Social Media
Dr Beth T Bell / @drbethbell

3. 1. Who reads and who acts upon diet
and fitness messages on social
media?

4. Healthy Bodies Survey
• Online and paper-based survey distributed as part of Eating
Disorders Awareness Week 2014 as part of a broader project
into healthy lifestyles on campus.
• Survey contained measures validated measures of:
– Body image (BAS; Avalos et al., 2011)
– Disordered eating attitudes (EAT-26; Berland et al., 1986)
– Physical activity (IPAQ; Booth et al., 2003)
– Appearance motives for exercise (MPAM-R; Ryan & Deci, 1995)

5. Healthy Bodies Survey
• Measures of consumption of diet & exercise information on social
media
– How often do you read information about dieting practices on social media?
– How often do you read information about physical activity on social media?
– Have you ever followed (by followed we mean acted upon in the real world)
the diet information you have read on social media?
– Have you ever followed (by followed, we mean acted upon in the real world)
the physical activity information you have read on social?
• Qualitative descriptions of the types of information encountered
/acted up on were also collected
• N = 326 (Age M = 24.88, SD = 9.23; Range 18-62)

6. Descriptive Statistics
• 53.21% reported reading diet information on social media
– 48.97% of these individuals reported acting upon this information
• 50.00% reported reading exercise information on social media
– 68.35% of these individuals reported acting upon this information
1 2 3 4
1 Read Diet Information - .60** .61** .42**
2 Act upon Diet Information - - .41** .51**
3 Read Exercise Information - - - .65**
4 Act upon Exercise Information - - - -

7. Analysis
• Four hierarchal regression analyses were performed
– Variables were entered in two steps
 Model 2:
 Body image
 Appearance motives for exercise
 Disordered eating attitudes
 Amount of physical activity
 Model 1:
 Age
 Gender

8. Who Reads Diet
Information?
How often do you read information about dietary practices
on social media? (1 = Never / 5 = Always)
• Model 2 (F (6, 251) = 2.25, p < .05)
– Body image
– Disordered eating attitudes (β = 0.16, p < .05)
– Appearance exercise motives
– Physical activity
• Model 1 F(2, 255) = 0.28, p = .76
– Gender
– Age

9. Who Follows Diet
Information?
How often do you follow (by followed we mean acted upon in the
real world) the diet information you read on social media? (1 =
Never / 5 = Always)
• Model 2 F(6, 114) = 1.80, p = .11)
– Body image
– Disordered eating attitudes (β = .24, p < .05)
– Appearance exercise motives
– Amount of physical activity
• Model 1 F(2, 118) = 2.28, p=.11
– Gender
– Age

10. Who Reads Exercise
Information?
How often do you read information about physical activity on social
media (1 = Never / 5 = Always)?
• Model 2 (F (6,220) = 4.05, p < .001)
– Body image
– Disordered eating attitudes
– Appearance exercise motives (β = .20, p < .01)
– Amount of physical activity (β = .20, p < .01)
• Model 1 F (2, 224) = 0.17, p = .85
– Gender
– Age

11. Who Follows Exercise
Information?
How often do you follow (by followed, we mean acted upon in the
real world) the physical activity information you have read on social
media? (1 = Never / 5 = Always)
• Model 2 F(6, 111) = 2.19, p < .05)
– Body image
– Disordered eating attitudes (β = .26, p < .05)
– Appearance exercise motives
– Amount of physical activity
• Model 1 F(2, 115) = 0.19, p = .83
– Gender
– Age

12. Summary
• Individuals with disordered eating attitudes reported reading
diet information more frequently.
– Consistent with research involving magazines (Levine &
Murnen, 2009)
• Individuals who engage in high levels of physical activity and
exercise for appearance motives are more likely to report
reading exercise information online.
• Those with high disordered eating attitudes reported acting
more frequently on diet and exercise.
Correlational Data Only
Reading / acting upon social media messages is a complex
interaction between sender, message and receiver with many
broader psychological processes involved

13. 2. How are exercise and fitness
constructed on social media?

14. #Fitspiration
• Boepple & Thompson (2015)
– 42% of sites include images and information on weight-loss
– 20% of sites included fat/weight stigmatization messages
– 28% of sites included dieting/restraint messages
• Tiggemann & Zaccardo (2015)
– Acute exposure to thin and muscular models caused acute
body dissatisfaction in women

15. #Fitspiration
• Over 5 million images have been posted on social media
using #fitspiration
• Images designed to inspire “fitness” in others
How do individuals use images to inspire fitness in others?

16. Method
• On 17th January 2014:
– Searched instagram for all images posted using
#fitspiration
– Search performed using http://web.stagram.com/
• Printed the 1000 most recently posted images
• Images represent just 12 hours of content (!)
– Approximately 2000 images posted daily

17. Content Analysis of Imagery
Exercise 16.00%
Diet 23.80%
People 52.01%
Text 42.50%
Miscellaneous 12.71%

18. Images of People
• 708 people in #fitspiration posts: 482 females & 224
males
Total
Active 18%
Inactive 82%
Selfie 26%
Total
Thin / Low Body Fat 88%
Muscular 56%

19. Images of People
Male Female
Arms 75% 61%
Abdomen 35% 33%
Legs 15% 30%
Chest 40% 27%
Face 75% 61%
Links to objectification theory (Fredrickson &
Roberts, 1997)

20. Summary
• People featured in fitspiration
images conformed to prevailing
societal attractiveness ideals
• Shown in a highly objectified and
gendered way
– More selfies than active poses
– Body parts exposed (flesh on show)
though differed according to gender
– Face omitted

21. Images with Text
52.01%
• Decision was made to perform a thematic analysis of the
text contained within these images
(Braun & Clarke, 2006)

22. Thematic Analysis of Text
• Six major themes:
1. Fit is sexy.
2. A fit physique requires
commitment and self-
regulation
3. Your choices define you!
4. Pleasure and perseverance
through pain
5. Battle of the selves
6. Here’s to us!

23. Summary
• Fitness motivation is constructed
in several ways:
– Fit is sexy and having a fit body is
important and requires
determination
– You are responsible for attaining a
fit body and failure is not
acceptable
– Fitspiration is a community that
others may not understand.
• Some messages were positive & a
genuine source of motivation

24. 3. How can we teach individuals to
critically deconstruct diet and
exercise messages on social media?

25. Healthy Bodies
• Adaptation of the CYQ Level 1 Award in Body
Image and the Relationship to Wellbeing:
– Nationally recognised qualification covering self-
esteem, body image, healthy eating and physical
activity.
• Adapted mode of delivery to incorporate
behaviour change strategies and techniques.
• Funded by YSJ Strategic Investment Fund in
partnership with CYQ.

26. SELF
AFFIRMATION
COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE
(including around
social media
messages)
IMPLEMENTATION
INTENTIONS
Session Structure
• Content is delivered over four two hour sessions and each
session incorporates 3 empirically-tested behaviour change
techniques.
• Sessions are delivered over consecutive weeks.

27. Evaluation Procedure
• Participants completed a battery of psychological measures
pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2) and at an eight
week follow-up (T3) including:
– Positive body image
– Negative body image
– Restrained and emotional eating behaviour
– Physical activity participation
– Motivation for exercise
– Healthful eating behaviour (e.g. 5 a day, supplement intake)
• A control group from the same school, matched by age and
academic ability completed the same measures at the same
time points.
Data collection ongoing

28. Key Questions
1. Who reads and who acts upon diet and fitness messages on
social media?
– Regression analyses revealed that individuals with highly
disordered eating attitudes act more frequently upon diet
and exercise information on social media.
2. How is fitness constructed online?
– Examination of images posted using “#fitspiration"
highlighted appearance focused and objectifying nature of
fitness images as a potential cause for concern.
3. How can we teach individuals to critically deconstruct diet and
exercise messages on social media?
– Evaluation ongoing.

29. • Also need to work with
individuals posting diet and
exercise information on
social media
• Currently developing CPD for
personal trainers and other
sports practitioners to
encourage them to reflect
more critically on the images
and messages they share

30. Any Questions?

31. References
Avalos, L., Tylka, T. L., & Wood-Barcalow, N. (2005). The Body Appreciation Scale: development and
psychometric evaluation. Body image, 2(3), 285-297.
Boepple, L. & Thompson, J. K.(2015). A content analytic comparison of Fitspiration and Thinspiration
websites, International Journal of Eating Disorders, 1-4.
Berland, N. W., Thompson, J. K., & Linton, P. H. (1986). Correlation between the EAT‐26 and the EAT‐40,
the Eating Disorders Inventory, and the Restrained Eating Inventory. International Journal of Eating
Disorders, 5(3), 569-574.
Levine, M. P. & Murnen, S. K. (2009). “Everybody knows that mass media are/are not [pick one] a cause
of eating disorders”: A critical review of evidence for a causal link between media negative body image,
and disordered eating in females, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28 (1), 9-42.
Müller, S., & Stice, E. (2013). Moderators of the intervention effects for a dissonance-based eating
disorder prevention program; results from an amalgam of three randomized trials. Behaviour research
and therapy, 51(3), 128-133.
Tiggemann, M., & Zaccardo, M. (2015). “Exercise to be fit, not skinny”: The effect of fitspiration
imagery on women's body image. Body image, 15, 61-67.
Vaterlaus, J. M., Patten, E. V., Roche, C. & Young, J. A. (2015). #Gettinghealthy: The perceived influence
of social media on adult health behaviors, Computers in Human Behavior, 45, 151-157.