A Study Of The Relationship Between Fitness App Use And Body Image

The development of national economy and the improvement of people’s living standard make people pay more attention to and pursue higher-level needs after satisfying basic material needs,including the concern and perception of their own bodies,and the desire and pursuit of physical beauty and health.Fitness exercise is an effective means and way to shape the body and lead to health,and with the rise of national fitness boom,fitness apps are widely used by people for their convenience,guidance and sociality.As a new media closely related to body information,the use of fitness apps has an impact on individuals’ body concerns,perceptions and evaluations,which deserves attention and reflection.Based on the media construction theory,the more frequently and deeply individuals use mass media,the more they will trust the media-constructed virtual reality and establish the perception and action of the virtual reality perceived by individuals as the social reality.The research hypotheses are proposed: there are significant differences in demographic variable information(gender,age,education,occupation,and city class)for individual fitness app use;There are significant differences in demographic variable information(gender,age,education,occupation,and city class)for individual body image;and significant positive effects of individual fitness app use on body image.The questionnaire is designed on the basis of the body image scale,Multidimensional Body-Image Self Relations Questionnaire(MBSRQ),and the questionnaire is tested for reliability and validity.1038 questionnaires are collected and screened by questionnaire star in a random sample of 34 provincial administrative regions across China.The basic composition of the statistical sample is analyzed,and the overall situation of individual fitness app use and body image is elaborated through descriptive analysis and analysis of variance,and the relationship between the two is investigated through correlation analysis and regression analysis to verify the research hypothesis.To summarize and discuss the basic characteristics of the high overall level of individual fitness app use and body image,the significant differences in gender,age,education,occupation and city class,and the positive predictive effect of individual fitness app use on body image,analyze the reasons for the study results,and summarize the four main conclusions of the study: the overall level of individual fitness app use is high,and the overall level of body image is high;there are significant differences between individual fitness app use and body image in terms of gender,age,education,occupation,and city class;there are significant correlations between fitness app use,fitness app use frequency,fitness app use level,and body image,appearance assessment,appearance tendency,comfort assessment,comfort tendency,health assessment,health tendency,disease tendency,body part satisfaction,overweight,and self-categorization.After excluding the confounding interference of gender,age,education,occupation,and city class,fitness app use,frequency of fitness app use,and degree of fitness app use significantly and positively influenced body image.In the process of participating in the construction of social body,fitness apps construct a mimetic environment for spreading virtual social body,and it symbolizes body content when presenting body culture,and constructs a symbolic reality through various linguistic and non-linguistic symbols,meanwhile,as an embodied communication medium,fitness apps also construct body concept with its technical advantages and diversified functions,influencing audience’s body perception and spreading body culture.