The Power and Effects of Inclusive Body Representation in Social Media

With Instagram boasting over 2.4 billion active users around the world, 49.2% of them are women over the age of 18 all of whom are highly susceptible to the content they view online. Over the years, various studies have published statistics about the negative impacts of social media on body image and body dissatisfaction. Some of these include increased body comparison among peers and reduced body satisfaction due to photo-based online activities such as looking at, posting or editing photos prior to posting them. Such implications prompted a popular movement, called the Body Positivity movement, which started online in 2012 championing a deep sense of self compassion and appreciation towards one's body no matter their size, shape, ethnicity or physical ability.

A positive outlook on one’s body usually encompasses the following:

1. Unconditional love and respect for one’s body
2. Appreciation for one’s inherent beauty and the ability of the body to healthily carry out its daily functions
3. Acceptance of one’s body regardless of popularised beauty standards

As of 2021, there were over 9 million posts on Instagram with the hashtag ‘#bodypositivity’ tag tangibly displaying a clear inclination towards the movement. As a result, research on various groups of people presents the following positive outcomes of consuming body positive media:

1. Higher levels of body satisfaction and emotional well-being was found among undergraduate students who viewed and engaged with body positive accounts on Instagram (Stevens and Griffiths, 2020)
2. In young adult women between the ages of 18-25, it was found that social media captions that were body-positive were associated with higher levels of body esteem in comparison to neutral captions and those relating to ‘fitspiration’ (Davies et al., 2020)

Above are two findings amongst a plethora of examples all of which lead to similar if not the same results. Therefore, it can be said that body representation in media leads to higher body satisfaction and emotional well-being in women who are actively online.

Article written by : Sanchita Chopra