I’m so excited to share this guest post from my friend and colleague Jessica Sauerwein, MSW, RSW. Jessica has done extensive research on media literacy and the impact of social media on body image, and I know you’ll find her insights as valuable as I do. Take it away, Jessica! đ€
Rather than asking whether social media is good or bad for body image, researchers have spent years trying to understand much more nuanced questions. What types of social media use appear to be associated with poorer body image? Why do some people seem to be more affected than others? What role do algorithms play? Can social media ever have a positive influence?
One of the most important things the research tells us is that social media doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. Individual characteristics, the type of content people engage with, and how they use social media all appear to influence its impact. Simply having an Instagram or TikTok account doesn’t mean someone will develop body image issues or change the way they eat. At the same time, dismissing social media as harmless doesn’t reflect what the evidence shows either. Instead, the relationship appears to be much more complex. The content we consume, how we engage with it, our existing beliefs about ourselves, our mental health, our age, and even the design of the platforms themselves all seem to play a role.
What the Research Shows About Social Media and Body Image
Overall, research suggests that greater engagement with appearance-focused social media content is associated with poorer body image, increased body dissatisfaction, greater appearance comparison, and a higher likelihood of disordered eating behaviours.
Interestingly, the strongest associations aren’t necessarily linked to how much time people spend on social media. Instead, they appear to be more closely related to how people use it and what they repeatedly see. Someone who primarily follows artists or comedians is likely to have a very different experience than someone whose feed is dominated by appearance-focused content.
Researchers have found that actively comparing ourselves to others is one of the strongest ways social media can influence body image and eating habits. Comparison is a natural human tendency, but social media dramatically increases the number of opportunities we have to compare our appearance every day.
Why Social Media Can Have Such a Powerful Influence on Body Image
Think about how many appearance-related messages someone might encounter during a typical day of scrolling. There may be transformation videos, carefully curated photos, “What I Eat in a Day” posts, advertisements, wellness advice, and creators sharing gym routines or beauty tips. Individually, these posts may seem relatively insignificant, but their influence often comes from repeated exposure rather than any single message. Much of what we see on social media has been carefully curated, yet we often compare our ordinary, everyday lives with someone’s best lighting, edited photo, or highlight reel.
Content also doesn’t need to be explicitly about appearance to influence body image. Messages about productivity, discipline, self-improvement, wellness, or “living your healthiest life” can also shape how we think about ourselves when they become closely tied to appearance.
How Social Media Can Influence Eating Habits
When people think about the relationship between social media and eating habits, they often picture obvious examples such as fad diets or influencers promoting weight-loss products. Those certainly exist, but the influence of social media on eating habits is often much more subtle than that.
Research suggests that repeated exposure can gradually shape how we think and feel about food. Studies have found associations between dieting content, body dissatisfaction, dietary restriction, and disordered eating behaviours. This doesn’t mean one nutrition video changes someone’s eating habits, but repeated exposure can gradually shift what eating “well” looks like and which foods we begin to view positively or negatively.
One concept that I believe deserves much more attention is the moralization of food. Spend enough time online and it becomes surprisingly easy to start thinking about food in terms of being “good” or “bad,” “clean” or “dirty,” “healthy” or “unhealthy.” While these labels may seem harmless, they can gradually influence our relationship with food by attaching feelings of pride, guilt, or shame to what we eat. This is particularly important because many of these messages are presented as wellness advice rather than dieting advice. While there are certainly evidence-based professionals providing valuable nutrition information online, social media rarely distinguishes between evidence-based advice and personal opinion.
Why Social Media Algorithms Matter
One of the biggest differences between social media and traditional forms of media is that social media learns from us. Every time we pause on a video, like a post, leave a comment, search for a topic, or watch something until the end, we provide information that helps algorithms predict what we are likely to engage with next.
This becomes particularly important when it comes to body image and eating habits because algorithms tend to reinforce patterns. Imagine someone watches a few videos about healthy recipes or strength training. The platform responds by recommending more nutrition and fitness content. They pause on a weight-loss transformation, and all of a sudden, their feed includes more dieting discussions, supplement advertisements, and body transformation videos. In just a few days, their social media environment can look very different from where it started.
Algorithms don’t just influence what we see, they can also shape our perception of what is normal. Their primary goal is to keep us engaged, not to ensure we are exposed to balanced, representative, or evidence-based information. Understanding that helps us interpret our feeds differently. Rather than assuming they represent the world as it is, we can begin seeing them for what they really are: highly personalized collections of content designed to capture our attention.
Can Social Media Ever Have a Positive Influence?
Given everything we have discussed so far, it would be easy to conclude that social media is simply harmful for body image and eating habits. However, one of the most interesting aspects of this research is that social media has the potential to both support and undermine well-being depending on how it is used, and the types of content people are repeatedly exposed to.
For many people, social media has provided access to perspectives that weren’t available a generation ago. It has also created opportunities to learn from registered dietitians, psychologists, physicians, researchers, and people with lived experience who share evidence-based information about body image, nutrition, and eating disorder recovery.
Social media has also broadened conversations about body diversity. While appearance ideals certainly still exist online, there are now many creators intentionally challenging those ideals by sharing a wider range of body sizes, abilities, ages, genders, and life experiences. Research suggests that exposure to more diverse and realistic representations of bodies may contribute to improved body image and reduced appearance comparison for some individuals.
Just as someone can fill their feed with appearance-focused content that encourages constant comparison, someone else can intentionally build a feed that exposes them to diverse perspectives, evidence-based information, and communities that genuinely support their well-being.
Taking a Closer Look at Your Own Social Media Environment
If there is one practical takeaway from this post, it is to pay attention to the environment you are repeatedly exposing yourself to.
One exercise I encourage people to try is spending ten minutes scrolling with curiosity instead of habit. Rather than focusing on individual posts, step back and look at your feed as though you were seeing it for the first time. What themes appear repeatedly? How often do you encounter posts related to weight, dieting, exercise, appearance, or food? Are the same body types consistently represented? Does your feed reflect a wide variety of perspectives, or does it reinforce a fairly narrow view of what health, beauty, or success should look like?
As you scroll, pay attention to your own reactions. Which posts leave you feeling informed, inspired, or genuinely connected? Which ones leave you feeling inadequate, guilty, or like you should be doing more? Do you notice yourself comparing your appearance, your eating habits, or your lifestyle to what you are seeing? This can provide valuable insight into how your media environment is affecting you.
It can also be helpful to ask yourself what your algorithm has learned about you. If someone looked only at your social media feed, what would they assume you value most? Would they think you are interested in body image? Weight loss? Fitness? Nutrition? Fashion? Parenting? Politics? Mental health? The answer may not actually reflect your priorities. Instead, it reflects the topics that have consistently captured your attention.
Once you begin noticing these patterns, consider whether your feed reflects the kind of environment you want to spend time in. If certain accounts consistently leave you feeling worse about yourself, you don’t need to justify unfollowing or blocking them just because they are popular or well-intentioned. Similarly, if your feed has become overwhelmingly focused on appearance or food, consider introducing more variety. Follow creators who represent different body types, cultures, ages, abilities, interests, and perspectives, and engage with content that teaches, challenges, or inspires you in ways that extend beyond appearance.
Helping Children Build Media Literacy Around Body Image and Food
Parents often ask what they can do to help protect their children from unrealistic messages online. While there is no single strategy that eliminates every risk, one of the most valuable things parents can do is help children develop the skills to think critically about the media they consume, rather than trying to shield them from it. The reality is that children will eventually encounter unrealistic beauty standards, nutrition advice, influencers, advertisements, and persuasive content. Media literacy helps prepare them for those moments.
One of the simplest ways to begin is by showing curiosity about what your child is seeing online. Questions like “What kinds of videos have been showing up in your feed?” or “Have you seen anything interesting this week?” create opportunities to understand their online world, while signalling that social media is something they can talk to you about openly.
When conversations about body image or food do arise, try to focus less on providing immediate answers and more on asking thoughtful questions. If your child shows you a “What I Eat in a Day” video, you might ask whether they think that way of eating would be appropriate for everyone, whether the creator has relevant expertise, or what they think the purpose of the video is. Helping children think through these questions teaches them to evaluate messages rather than passively accepting them.
Additionally, explaining that algorithms learn from what captures our attention can reduce the tendency to believe that “everyone” thinks or behaves the same way simply because similar content keeps appearing.
Parents can also support healthy body image by paying attention to the conversations happening at home. Children learn about bodies and food from many different sources, including the adults around them. When appearance becomes a frequent topic of conversation, when foods are consistently labelled as “good” or “bad,” or when weight is regularly discussed as a measure of success or health, children may begin absorbing these messages long before they encounter them online. Creating an environment where bodies are appreciated for what they can do rather than primarily how they look, and where food is discussed in a balanced and flexible way, provides an important foundation that can help children navigate the messages they encounter elsewhere.
The Takeaway
Ultimately, media literacy isn’t focused on fearing social media or avoiding it altogether. It is about understanding it well enough that we can engage with it intentionally. When we recognize how algorithms shape our feeds, how repeated exposure influences our perceptions, and how easily comparison can become part of our daily lives, we create space to make more conscious choices about what we consume and how we respond to it. In a world where media has become woven into so much of our everyday lives, that awareness may be one of the most valuable tools we have.
Jessica Sauerwein, MSW, RSW
Jessica is the founder of Modern Media Literacy Co., where she helps parents, educators, healthcare providers, and individuals better understand and navigate the media they encounter every day. Through educational resources, consultations, and personalized media literacy plans, she supports people in building the skills to think more critically about today’s media landscape.
References
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Jiotsa, B., Naccache, B., Duval, M., Rocher, B., & Grall-Bronnec, M. (2021). Social media use and body image disorders: Association between frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people being followed on social media and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(6), 2880.
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