The "Little Red Riding Hood effect:" Fitspiration is just as bad as thinspiration for women’s body satisfaction.
Abstract
Fitspiration is a popular form of social media which outwardly promotes the pursuit of health and strength rather than of thinness. Content analyses, however, suggest that it is thematically similar to thinspiration, which is primarily associated with thinness and presents disordered eating as a lifestyle choice. Exposure to both reduces body satisfaction, but their effect has not been compared. Further, positive body image may act as a protective factor by reducing engagement in appearance comparisons. Female undergraduate students (N = 331) were randomly assigned to view fitspiration, thinspiration, or travel images, followed by measures of state body satisfaction, state appearance comparison, and positive body image. Viewing fitspiration and thinspiration resulted in lower body satisfaction than did viewing travel images. However, whereas women with higher positive body image appeared protected from thinspiration by engaging in lower appearance comparisons than did women with lower positive body image, this same effect was not observed in women who viewed fitspiration. The fact that positive body image is not protective against fitspiration suggests that fitspiration is just as harmful, if not more, than is thinspiration and highlights the need for media literacy programs targeting fitspiration and so-called "healthy living" websites.
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Exposure to fitspiration imagery relative to control images has a causal relationship with body image dissatisfaction and negative mood.
“Three moderate- to high- quality experimental studies demonstrated that exposure to fitspiration imagery relative to control images resulted in body image dissatisfaction and negative mood for participants, pointing towards a causal relationship [60–62].”
From The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people (2023) · cites this paper as [60]
Three moderate- to high-quality experimental studies demonstrated that exposure to fitspiration imagery relative to control images resulted in body image dissatisfaction and negative mood for participants.
“Three moderate- to high- quality experimental studies demonstrated that exposure to fitspiration imagery relative to control images resulted in body image dissatisfaction and negative mood for participants, pointing towards a causal relationship [60–62].”
From The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people (2023) · cites this paper as [60]
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- Authors
- Dignard, N. A. L., & Jarry, J. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Windsor (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Jarry, Josée L.
- Venue
- Body Image
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-03
- Volume
- 36
- Pages
- 201-213
- ISSN
- 1740-1445 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3114575767
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 74
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 6
- FWCI
- 2.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Body Image (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Feminism, and Media
- Keywords
- fitspiration, thinspiration, body satisfaction, positive body image, appearance comparison, disordered eating, social media, women, media literacy, travel images
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Body Image, Female, Humans, Personal Satisfaction, Physical Fitness, Thinness, Young Adult, Social Media
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