“To be able to change, you have to take risks #fitspo”: Exploring correlates of fitspirational social media use among young women

Abstract

Posting and viewing fitspiration-related content is a new social media trend. Although some say that fitspiration inspires women towards an empowered body image, others argue that fitspirational social media use may negatively influence women’s body image. To address these concerns, the current study (359 women; ages 18–28 years) investigated how exposure to four types of fitspirational social media messages related to three indicators of body image: body dissatisfaction, compulsive exercise, and situated optimism related to body goals. Moreover, we investigated the role of two individual difference variables in predicting women’s exposure to fitspirational messages and moderating the relationships between exposure and indicators of body image: thin-ideal internalization and fit-ideal internalization. Overall, the study provides support for both positive and negative correlates of fitspirational social media use. In addition, the findings provide initial evidence that individual difference variables differentially predict exposure to certain types of fitspirational content and moderate the relationship between fitspirational social media and body image related variables. Thus, this study emphasizes that the relationship between fitspirational social media and body image involves a complex interaction between characteristics of consumers and the exact content that is being consumed.