Running head: EFFECTS OF INSTAGRAM ON BODY IMAGE 0

The Effects of Instagram on Girls’ Body Image

Jshania A. Owens

San Francisco State University

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Abstract

This paper explores five peer-reviewed journals that report on the effects of Instagram’s content

on women and young girls. The content includes images of “body positivity” and “fitspiration”,

in which these images invoke body image ideals and play a role in their self-objectification that

makes both a positive and negative impact on their self-image, as well as Instagram

“influencers”, which are users on social media. Four theories are discussed in this paper: media

ecology, social cognitive theory, uses and gratifications, and cultural studies. The study done by

Cohen and Fardouly (2019) look at the effects of young women’s mood and body image after

viewing body positive content. Another study by Fardouly and Holland (2018) examines the

effects of attaching a disclaimer label to idealized social media images, in which their studies

showed the disclaimers had no effect, but the images still contributed to the negative influence

on their body image. Other articles define body positivity and fitspiration but discuss their effects

differently.

Keywords: influencers, body image, body positivity, fitspiration, sexual objectification

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The Effects of Instagram on Girls’ Body Image

Teenagers and young adults make up the majority of users on Instagram, with

demographics from last year showing users aged 13-24 make up about 39 percent of 800 million

active accounts in the world (“Top Instagram Demographics”, 2018). Young teens, particularly

girls, go through a time in adolescence where image and perception are crucial to them. Social

media plays a significant role in their self-objectification for as long as they reach adulthood. The

purpose of this paper is to explore how images on Instagram have an effect on young girls’ body

image.

Throughout young girls’ lives, body image is crucial to them and the way they compare

themselves to usually high beauty standards in society influences how they feel about themselves

throughout their lives, both positive and negative. By understanding the ways in which social

media creates a certain image of acceptance for girls, researchers will be able to find ways for

girls to ignore the psychologically damaging aesthetic of an ideal beauty standard and focus

more on a more positive experience for girls when they are using social media. Body image

refers to a person’s perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. Body

positivity is a social movement with the belief that all human beings should have a positive body

image, while challenging the ways in which society presents and views the female body. Sexual

objectification is the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire. “Influencers” on

social media are known as users who have established credibility in a specific industry and has

access to a large audience due to their usually high number of followers. They can persuade

others using their authenticity. Three theories are discussed that help explain the impact of social

media on body image: media ecology, social cognitive theory, and cultural studies.
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Literature Review

Body Positivity

Instagram impacts young women in ways that lead to self-objectification, as well as

positive and negative effects of their body image. Their positive self judgement leads them to the

idea of body positivity, and the media ecology theory looks at the impact of these movements on

social media sites like Instagram on individuals like young girls and society. Rachel Cohen and

Jasmine Fardouly’s “#BoPo on Instagram: An experimental investigation of the effects of

viewing body positive content on young women’s mood and body image” refers to a review by

Holland and Tiggemann (2016) which discovered that social media is positively related to body

image concerns and disordered eating. They found that women who view posts like “fitspiration”

that idealize lean and thin bodies are more prone to increased negative mood, body

dissatisfaction, and self-objectification. The idealization of thin, lean bodies in media negatively

impacts young women’s body image and creates a negative and unattainable beauty standard in

society.

Body positive content on social media challenges traditional media’s marginalized view

if bodies that don’t reflect society’s predominantly slim and flawless appearance standards. The

posts are captioned with positive quotes expressing an appreciation for the body they have.

Elizabeth Daniels and Eileen Zurbriggen’s article, “It’s Not the Right Way to Do Stuff on

Facebook:’ An Investigation of Adolescent Girls’ and Young Women’s attitudes Toward

Sexualized Photos on Social Media”, shows their study findings exclusively on Facebook. The

sexualization of girls and women gives evidence in mass media that girls and women regularly

see sexiness encouraged and rewarded through this channel (Daniels & Zurbriggen, pg 936). An
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example of this would be the redundant archetype of women in media being the object of sexual

appeal. This study uses qualitative research to look at the attitudes of teen girls and young adult

women toward posting sexualized profile photos on Facebook. They used a sample of 112

adolescent girls and young women, aged from 13 to 25 years old. The investigation then had

them grouped into three age groups. The participants used each other’s Facebook profile pictures

to answer interview questions about posting photos in a swimsuit or underwear. The questions

ranged from why they thought teen girls and young women used swimsuit or underwear pictures

as their profile photo to whether they think it is okay to post those as their profile pictures, as

well as their opinion on other girls and young women who would post those photos.

Similar to Cohen’s study, the girls’ responses to the question on why young girls and

women use swimsuit or underwear pictures as their profile photo, 78% of girls and women

reported that those photos were for attention and exposure (Daniels & Zurbriggen, pg. 946). The

negative response was similar to Cohen’s results of negative reactions toward fitspiration posts.

In conclusion, Daniels’ findings show that “social media perpetuates gender stereotypes limiting

female sexuality that exist offline” (959).

Limitations within the study included the demographic not having enough ethnic

diversity since the majority of the sample were white. Daniels proposed future studies done

towards examining the attitudes of boys and young men’s sexualized behavior on social media.

Influencers

The media ecology theory’s effect on young girls through Instagram in terms of body

image brings us to the direct influence and self-presentation of Instagram influencers on them.

This incorporates the social cognitive theory, which is when learning occurs in a social context
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with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior. In this case,

the social context is within an online environment. The findings found in Elmira Djafarova and

Oxana Trofimenko’s “‘Instafamous’ – credibility and self-presentation of micro-celebrities on

social media” determined the credibility of influencers as a marketing tool and “assess

consumers’ attitude towards these Instagram celebrities” (1443). Using theoretical and practical

research, they found three factors to determining the credibility of the influencers: attractiveness,

expertise, and trustworthiness. The participants included 38 Russian women aged between 21-35

who used Instagram regularly. They found that 83% of the participants used Instagram on a daily

basis (1437). They also found that “participants who used Instagram daily liked to follow the

information provided by micro-celebrities and enjoyed looking at the phots representing their

lifestyles” (1438).

Obvious limitations in this work include the lack of generalization due to the study only

being done in Russia rather than other parts of the world. A separate study by Djafarova and

Chloe Rushworth, “Exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ Instagram profiles influencing

the purchase decisions of young female users”, focuses mainly on the purchasing decisions of the

users, but explores the same intentions with following the influencers. Their findings showed

that participants found the influencers more credible and relatable in their endorsements than

celebrities. They were also more likely to follow influencers that “intentionally portray positive

images and provide encouraging reviews” (Djafarova & Rushworth, 1). As recalled in the

research question of this paper, these positive images and reviews given by influencers show the

positive side of social media’s impact on them. These two studies are similar in demonstrating

the effects influencers have on their female followers’ own perspectives.

Self-objectification
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The effects of social media on young women are significant in mostly negative ways.

Their perception has a direct effect on society and how girls are influenced by it. The cultural

studies theory looks at media effects on society. The research done by Jasmine Fardouly, Brydie

Willburger, and Lenny Vartanian in “Instagram use and young women’s body image concerns

and self-objectification: Testing mediational pathways” was a qualitative study on whether

internalization of societal beauty ideals and appearance comparisons had any relationships

between Instagram use. Fardouly et al.’s study was more experimental. It was performed on

women aged 18-25 years old. The study was done online as they studied the use of a disclaimer

on Instagram images of thin ideals. Fardouly et. al.’s participants also included women from

Australia as well as the United States.

In Fardouly and Elise Holland’s “Social media is not real life: The effect of attaching

disclaimer-type labels to idealized social media images on women’s body image and mood”, the

findings concluded that “viewing idealized images taken from social media had a negative

influence on women’s body image, with or without the presence of disclaimer comments” (2019,

p. 4311). Although the disclaimer had no effect on the womens’ moods, they discovered women

have a less positive impression on the person who posted disclaimer comments on their pictures.

They predicted a range of reasons for this, one of them being that their perception has changed

due to being deceived by the person who posted the picture, as well as “the hypocrisy of…

complaining about a system they have personally benefitted from” (Fardouly & Holland 2019, p.

4324). This study also suggested to have further research done to test different techniques on the

effect of women’s body image that do not include idealizes images such as more realistic and

natural images.
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After reviewing their perspectives of the media effects on young girl’s body image,

Fardouly and Willburger were successful in using a meditational method to study the effects of

negative and positive portrayals of body image on young women. Their ways of using a

disclaimer before viewing images of body positivity or fitspiration was a new approach to

conducting the study. However, there are gaps in the study, like the need for more experimental

research to “determine the direction of the relationship between Instagram usage and self-

objectification among young women” (Fardouly, Willburger p. 1391). There is also more

research needed to further examine difference across other social media platforms like Facebook.

Influencers

The cultural effects of media on young girls’ body image brings us to the motives for and

uses of media, which is the uses and gratifications theory. Jiyoung Chae’s study in “Explaining

females’ envy toward social media influencers” uses a quantitative method to examine how

social media use and personality traits affect girls’ envy toward influencers through social

comparison (Chae 2018, p.246). The study was done in South Korea with 1,064 women

participating in the study. Chae’s results showed that the girls’ “exposure to influencers’ postings

are related to the frequency of social comparison behavior, which predicts envy over time”

(p.259). Their findings show that the girls who cared about what others thought of them and were

insecure were the ones who compared themselves the most with influencers, resulting in envy

(Chae 2018, p.259). Both quantitative and qualitative aspects were found in the study, with

qualitative aspects relating to the type of content shown and quantitative being the frequency of

exposure (Chae 2019, p.259).

Chae’s study is similar to the study done by Nicole Baker in “A qualitative study

exploring female college students’ Instagram use and body image”. Baker used the qualitative
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method to find out if female college students used Instagram and if the social media platform

impacts their body image. A total of 27 participants were used in the study, aged 19-22 years

(2019, p.277). The three themes in their research included effortful posting, self-promotion, and

seeking engagement on Instagram (Baker, p.278). Her results found that the women put in time

and effort into picking photos of themselves to post, with several needing to edit and filter their

photos before posting. The selected photos were based on comparing themselves to how others

looked. They also expressed how they needed others to interact with their content. They would

delete or post the photo at a later time if it did not generate a certain number of likes. In terms of

body image, the girls strived to measure up to the beauty ideals witnessed online (Baker, p.278).

This included using makeup, being skinny, and having an hourglass body. Participants viewed

others’ images and wished they could look like them. Some idealized popular individuals with a

high amount of likes on their pictures. These findings suggested that the women in this study

“placed a great amount of value on receiving feedback from followers” (Baker, p.280).

Analysis

The research studies in this review examined the major effects social media content has

on young girls and women’s self-image. Factors like body positivity, fitspiration, self-

objectification, and sexuality have been proven in the studies that social media contribute to the

overall negative and positive portrayals of self-image onto young girls and women. In terms of

body image, Fardouly et. al. was successful in making connections to Instagram use and self-

objectification in girls, as well as internalization and appearance comparisons to celebrities. Girls

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will always compare themselves to Instagram images, but this can be a positive interaction when

they focus more on the body positive content rather than societal norms. Fardouly and Holland’s

study (2018) showed that viewing idealized images had a negative influence on women’s body

image with or without the use of disclaimers, while Fardouly and Willburger et. al.’s study

(2018) was similar in showing the negative effects of Instagram use on girls which resulted in

greater self-objectification and appearance comparison.

The findings in Cohen and Fardouly et. al.’s research found that the brief exposure to

body positive posts has shown improvements in mood and body satisfaction, while the same

body positive posts in addition to thin ideal posts were associated with increased self-

objectification (Cohen et. al., 2019, p.1547). This confirms the research question in this paper on

the positive and negative effects of social media images on young girls’ self-image, proving that

body positive ideals are beneficial to their self-confidence, while thin ideals are still followed

and contribute to their negative self-image. The study done by Daniels and Zurbriggen (2019)

was done on Facebook and had done a different study on sexual images posted as their profile

pictures. Their results have shown that “social media perpetuates gender stereotypes limiting

female sexuality that exists offline” (Daniels & Zurbriggen, 2019, p.959). This finding was very

different from Cohen et. al.’s research but was still relevant to this paper’s research question and

how patriarchal standards heavily influence today’s societal norms on body image ideals.

Instagram influencers have a significant impact on young girls in a way that plays a role

in the way they project themselves on social media. Djafarova and Trofimenko (2019) have

shown in their research that the visual content of influencers quickly generated emotions from

users viewing those images. Positive images gain positive feedback from them. Attractiveness

and quality of images are significant keys to determine whether users will follow this influencer.
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These findings were similar to Djafarova and Rushworth’s findings (2017), where the

participants looked for the same qualities of an influencer (attractiveness, quality, and image)

before buying a product or service used by them. Both studies found that influencers have a

significant impact on the motives of their followers and looked for physical attributes of an

influencer. This draws back to this paper’s research question on social media’s impact on young

women. They rely on influencers to make judgements on a purchase in the same way they rely

on them for social acceptance.

The uses and gratifications theory looked at the motives behind girls’ usage of Instagram,

which was connected to low self-esteem. Baker’s study (2019) found that participants heavily

edited and used filters on their pictures before posting online, as well as asking for their friends’

approval before posting (2019, pg. 280). The girls wanted others to react to their content, seeking

likes and comments on their pictures. They also wanted to measure up to beauty ideals seen on

Instagram like being skinny, wearing makeup, and fitspiration ideals (2019, pg. 278). These

findings are similar to Chae’s research (2019). Chae found that the girls that were insecure and

most likely to care about others’ opinions on them were the ones who compared themselves the

most with influencers, resulting in envy (2019, pg. 251).

Errors in research prompted several suggestions to a better study in the future that can

focus more on the male perspective of body image issues in the media. The patriarchal standards

of body image ideals are relative to the male gaze, which is the act of depicting women from a

masculine perspective and represents women as a sexual object. A majority of body image ideals

researched in this paper are measured by how sexually desirable the images are, particularly to

men who view them.

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There was also a desire to broaden their demographic for future studies in terms of

ethnicity. Altogether, the research suggests that since social media is based on user-generated

content, people can choose to view and share more realistic images of beauty on social media

and to focus more on the “body positive” side of social media. User-generated content pertains to

the fact that anyone can create their own media to share on sites like Instagram. Their own idea

of realistic images can motivate them to post pictures of themselves, which contributes to more

inclusive and positive beauty ideals. It is possible to resist society’s strict body ideals by

enforcing a positive and inclusive body image by sharing these ideals on social media.

Conclusions and Future Study

This paper reviewed different types of investigations on viewing the effects of social

media images on young women’s self-image. The studies observed the effect social media

images had on their body image and their perception of others. This paper reviewed different

aspects of the cultural studies used in social media, as well as its uses and effects on society. The

researchers in this paper were able to see how images and methods to looking at content affected

the women and young girls though methods that might benefit them to have a more positive

perspective on themselves. Cohen et.al.’s study found that “the exposure to body-positive

content on Instagram can have a positive impact on women’s immediate mood, body

satisfaction, and body appreciation” (Cohen et. al., pg. 1559). Their study was limited with how

they conducted the study in a laboratory setting, causing the experimental context of the study to

not reflect real-world effects. As a result of the confined method of the study, real-life viewings

may appear larger than what they actually found in the study.
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The standards and ideals media show women to be and look a certain way at all times in

order to be satisfied or satisfy others. Social media further allows us to see more of these ideals

in a more personalized way. But when these standards are unattainable, it can be hard to avoid

the constant comparisons and resist from altering our photos to look more like what we are

taught to be the norm. The emergence of body positivity in media can hopefully rethink the way

we see ourselves and help get a more positive perspective on the impact social media has on us.
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References

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