Abstract
The body-positive movement (#bodypositive) champions body acceptance by celebrating a diverse - visual - array of body types and shapes online. Sparked out of collective resistance to unrealistic bodies on social media, the #bodypositive community has assembled a considerable following: having now surpassed one billion engagements on Instagram. To mark this milestone, we highlight the problem, the promise, and the peril of image-focused movements on Instagram. On balance, we argue #bodypositive content on Instagram likely has a positive impact. As the movement continues to grow though, advocates can look to strengthen the content’s positive impact with some careful, research-informed, messaging adjustments.
The body-positive movement (#bodypositive, #bopo, #bodypositivity) has amassed a considerable presence on the social media platform Instagram. The movement developed to combat and resist the #thinspiration and #fitspiration content that predominates on social media (Cohen et al., 2021). While these two hashtags appear to promote slightly different outcomes, both #thinspiration and #fitspiration content stigmatise body fat and promote losing weight through dieting and/or food restriction (Boepple and Thompson, 2016). In contrast, #bodypositive content celebrates body acceptance by depicting a diverse array of body types and shapes (Cohen et al., 2019). Speaking to the growing power of the movement, #bodypositive content recently passed 1 billion engagements on Instagram. To draw attention to this milestone, we take a brief look at the problem, the promise, and potential perils of body image related movements on social media like Instagram.
The problem
It is no secret that #thinspiration and #fitspiration content on Instagram negatively impacts women’s body image (Brown and Tiggemann, 2016; Casale et al., 2021; McComb and Mills, 2021; Tiggemann and Barbato, 2018; Tiggemann and Zaccardo, 2015). For example, Brown and Tiggemann (2016) found women exposed to thin-ideal content display significant decreases in mood and body satisfaction. Beyond academic research, internal documents released by Instagram’s parent company Facebook (recently rebranded as Meta) express similar concerns. Their in-house research not only echoed the negative impact of thin-ideal content on Instagram, but also found that users of Instagram themselves are aware of the platform’s potential harms in this domain (Wells et al., 2021).
A growing body of research also suggests it is very difficult to mitigate these harms (Vandenbosch et al., 2022). For example, research has demonstrated that disclaimers (e.g., “This picture does not portray reality. . .”) attached to #thin/fitspiration content are not effective (Couture Bue and Harrison, 2020; Naderer et al., 2022; Tiggemann et al., 2020). This particular outcome is concerning, given multiple government bodies continue to recommend the use disclaimers to stop harms.
The promise
Rather than attempting to mitigate thin-ideal content directly, the #bodypositive movement aims to increase the diversity of bodies displayed on Instagram. The user-generated nature of Instagram means that, unlike traditional forms of popular media, users can play a direct role in increasing body-positive content and supporting body-positive accounts. Experimental work on the impact of the #bodypositive movement is limited, but growing. For example, Cohen et al. (2019) exposed participants to either thin-ideal content or body-positive content. Consistent with previous research, participants exposed to thin-ideal content displayed reductions in mood and body satisfaction. In contrast, participants exposed to body-positive content displayed increases in mood and body satisfaction.
These promising findings are buoyed by the fact that body-positive content has an increasing presence on Instagram. For example, Cohen et al. (2019) search for the hashtag #bodypositive yielded over 6 million results, while Stevens and Griffiths (2020) search in May of 2020 yielded over 12.5 million. To provide a more in-depth and up-to-date picture, we utilised CrowdTangle to search for #bodypositive posts and engagements on Instagram. This analysis revealed that there are over 60 thousand unique accounts that have been tagged with #bodypositive. With respect to engagements, these accounts recently surpassed 1 billion likes and have more than 28 million comments.
The peril
While experimental research suggests #bodypositive content may have positive benefits for women’s body image, the movement is not without issue (Cohen et al., 2021). One potential peril is that, while promoting diverse body types, the movement still focuses on how women look. Indeed, Cohen et al. (2019) reported an increase in self-objectification for women who viewed either thin ideal content or #bodypositive content. In response to this, some have advocated for body-neutrality. As Cohen et al. (2021) aptly note, while body-neutrality is a nice ideal, it may not be a realistic position when women are immersed in a culture that places a great deal of value on how women look. A more practical approach may be to infuse #bodypositive content with themes of functionality (i.e., emphasizing all the things our bodies can do), with work suggesting a focus on functionality helps combat objectification (Alleva et al., 2017; Tylka and Wood-Barcalow, 2015).
One issue with #bodypositive, and any variation thereof, is that #bodypositive content is dwarfed by #thinspiration and #fitspiration content, with the hashtags amassing nearly 7 billion interactions across the same time period. This issue is exacerbated by the popularity of celebrity accounts on Instagram, the majority of which would be classified as promoting a thin-ideal (Brown and Tiggemann, 2016; Brown and Tiggemann, 2021). Thus, even if the number of accounts posting #bodypositive content increases, they are unlikely to receive the attention of these celebrity accounts. This raises a second potential peril, if #bodypositive content encourages people to join – and engage with similar content on – Instagram, it likely also risks exposing them to #thinspiration and #fitspiration content, along with the negative effects associated with those posts.
Conclusion
On balance, we argue #bodypositive content on social media like Instagram must be viewed positively. Potential perils aside, the growing movement reflects the changing nature of media, with user-generated content providing an avenue to display body sizes and shapes that have been excluded by traditional media. Reaching 1 billion engagements is an important milestone, reflecting the fact that people are receptive to #bodypositive content and perhaps commonly exposed to it. Although we would not wish to change the organic and user-generated nature of #bodypositive content, we believe there is room for professional development for #bodypositive influencers. For example, Poulter and Treharne’s (2021) qualitative work highlights several themes that support holding a body positive image. Integrating these themes (e.g., mindful engagement with media) in #bodypositive posts on Instagram would provide a promising research-informed approach to the movement.
Footnotes
Data sharing statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed in preparing the article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
