The Effect Of Body Positive Social Media Content On Female Body Image And Its Intervention

In recent years,with the development of network technology,the application of social media in people’s daily life is more and more common.It has been found that social media contains a large number of beautified and unrealistic female body images,and these beautified beauty ideal seriously affect women’s body image.To challenge this negative impact,a global momentum called "body positivity" has been trending on social media.In this movement,women show the diversity of women’s bodies by showing their real bodies and looks,and encourage women to accept and appreciate their bodies regardless of how their body size and appearance.Studies based on foreign social media,especially Instagram,preliminary showed that body positive social media has a positive effect on female body image,which is expected to be a new way to intervene women’s body image.However,the existing studies are all based on foreign social media,and it is not clear whether “body positivity” content on Chinese social media also benefits women’s body image.In addition,foreign studies on body positive social media content are also in the initial stage,and there are many issues need to be explored,such as influencing mechanism,vertical change,intervention programs and intervention practices.Based on this,this paper takes domestic social media as the background,analyzes the content characteristics of “body positivity” posts on Chinese social media,understands the exposure and cognition of Chinese young women to body positive social media content,and discusses the impact of “body positivity” posts on female body image from laboratory experiments,ecological monitoring,vertical intervention and other dimensions.To be specific,it is divided into 4 parts and contains 5 chapters.Part One: The content characteristics of “body positivity” posts on social media and the relationship between body positive social media and female body image.This part contains 2 studies.In Study 1,content analysis was used to analyze the content characteristics of “body positivity” posts on social media.The results showed that the core information conveyed by most body positivity posts in Chinese social media was consistent with the theoretical concept of positive body image.Nearly half of the posts contained the self-compassion themes.In study 2,qualitative interviews were conducted to analyze young women’s cognition of social media content,especially beauty ideals information and “body positivity” content.The results showed that young Chinese women have been exposed to body positive social media content and believe that it has the potential to improve women’s body image.However,they are concerned about the professionalism of some“body positivity” posts on social media and believe that the positive effect of the “body positivity” content may be small when the individual body image problem is serious.Part Two: The effect of body positive social media content on female body image.There are four small studies in total.Study 3a mainly explored the direct impact of watching body positive social media pictures on women’s body satisfaction,body appreciation and self-objectification.The experiment adopted a single-factor inter-subject pre and post test design,and the results showed that the state body satisfaction and body appreciation level of the subjects who watched the body positive social media content increased significantly,while the state self-objectification decreased significantly.Study 3b was based on study 3a to explore the role of state appearance comparison in the influence of body positivity social media images on female body image.The experiment adopted a single-factor inter-subject design.The results showed that no matter watching body positive social media images or beauty ideal images,the state appearance comparison level of the subjects was significantly higher than that of the neutral group,but the negative impact of the state appearance comparison of the body positivity group was not significant.On the basis of studies 3a and 3b,study 3c explored the role of state selfcompassion in the influence of body-positive social media images on female body image.The experiment adopts a single-factor inter-subject design.The results showed that body positive images on social media elicited higher levels of state self-compassion in women,and that state self-compassion elicited over the course of the experiment explained changes in body satisfaction and body appreciation.Study 4 further to examine whether body positive social media content can resist the negative effects of images of media beauty ideals on women’s body image.The experiment adopts a single-factor inter-subject design.The results showed that body positive social media content can temporarily improve young women’s body image,and the positive effects persist even after subsequent exposure to beauty ideals information.However,body positive social media content could not mitigate or counteract the negative impact of beauty ideal messages on women’s body image.Part three: To investigate the changes of women’s body satisfaction and appearance comparison after watching body positivity content in daily life,as well as the roles of individual’s BMI,trait body satisfaction and trait body appreciation.This part uses the ecological momentary assessment,which is study 5 of this study.The results showed that no matter what type of body-related media information they watch,women will show more frequent appearance comparison behavior in daily life.Personal characteristics,such as BMI,trait body satisfaction and trait body appreciation,can significantly predict the level of body satisfaction when individuals are exposed to media information.And in daily life,the type of social media women were exposed to had no significant effect on their state body image.Part Ⅳ: Intervention research(study 6).In this part,with the Internet as the carrier,body positive social media content as the material,and positive body image and selfcompassion as the intervention elements,we designed and conducted an online body image intervention program.And we obtained data evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of the intervention.The results showed that the intervention plan designed with body positive social media content as the material is feasible and effective.In general,the information conveyed by “body positivity” posts on domestic social media is conducive to young women’s body image.It is feasible and effective to use body positive social media content on domestic social media to intervene women’s body image.In the future,further research should be carried out from the perspectives of the detailed classification of “body positivity” posts,influence mechanism and personal characteristic variables.