Easton Stephanie, Morton Katherine, Tappy Zara, Francis Daniella, Dennison Laura
Academic Unit of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
J Med Internet Res. 2018 Jun 18;20(6):e219. doi: 10.2196/jmir.9156.
Social media use has become ubiquitous in the lives of many people, especially young adults. A popular recent trend emerging on social media is that of posting and following 'Fitspirational' content - material that purports to motivate and showcase healthy lifestyle habits, particularly relating to exercise and diet. There is very limited existing literature on how engaging with this type of content influences people's psychological and physical heath. Initial studies have focused on concerns over potential negative effects on psychological wellbeing including body image, self-esteem and eating disorders.
We aimed to address a gap in the literature for exploratory research on this topic from the perspective of users. We used a qualitative approach to explore how people experience viewing Fitspiration on social media including why and how they engage with this material and how they perceive that it affects their thoughts, emotions, behaviour and health.
We recruited 20 young adults (14 females, 6 males, aged 18-25) who self-declared themselves to be Fitspiration followers to participate in either focus groups or individual interviews. We asked detailed, open-ended questions about their motivations for following Fitspiration, experiences of viewing this content and its perceived impact. We used inductive thematic analysis to derive themes that represented common and salient features of the data set.
Four main themes were developed: 1) A tool with the potential to support healthy living, 2) Unrealistic, untrustworthy content, 3) Negative effects on emotional wellbeing, and 4) Vulnerability and protective factors. Following Fitspirational posts on social media can provide young people with knowledge and motivation that may support healthy lifestyle behaviours. However, a range of harms also appeared to arise from Fitspiration viewing ranging from minor annoyances and frustrations to more meaningful negative effects on psychological & physical health. These negative effects seemed to persist despite individuals acknowledging that the material can be unrealistic, and believing that they are personally equipped to minimise harms to themselves.
This study suggests that Fitspiration on social media can be attractive and compelling for young people but appears to bring about negative as well as positive effects. Future research should aim to confirm the scale and intensity of positive and negative effects and investigate ways of harnessing desirable outcomes and minimising undesirable outcomes.
社交媒体的使用在许多人的生活中已变得无处不在，尤其是在年轻人当中。社交媒体上最近流行的一个趋势是发布和关注“健身励志”内容——这类内容旨在激励并展示健康的生活方式习惯，特别是与锻炼和饮食相关的习惯。关于接触这类内容如何影响人们的心理和身体健康，现有文献非常有限。初步研究聚焦于对心理健康的潜在负面影响的担忧，包括身体形象、自尊和饮食失调等方面。
我们旨在填补文献空白，从用户角度对这一主题进行探索性研究。我们采用定性方法来探究人们在社交媒体上浏览健身励志内容的体验，包括他们接触这类内容的原因和方式，以及他们认为其如何影响自己的思想、情绪、行为和健康。
我们招募了20名自称是健身励志内容追随者的年轻人（14名女性，6名男性，年龄在18至25岁之间），让他们参加焦点小组讨论或个人访谈。我们询问了关于他们关注健身励志内容的动机、浏览此类内容的体验及其感知影响等详细的开放式问题。我们使用归纳主题分析法得出代表数据集共同和显著特征的主题。
形成了四个主要主题：1）一种有可能支持健康生活的工具；2）不现实、不可信的内容；3）对情绪健康的负面影响；4）脆弱性和保护因素。在社交媒体上关注健身励志帖子可以为年轻人提供可能支持健康生活方式行为的知识和动力。然而，浏览健身励志内容似乎也会引发一系列危害，从小烦恼和挫折到对心理和身体健康更严重的负面影响。尽管个人承认这类内容可能不现实，并相信自己有能力将对自身的危害降至最低，但这些负面影响似乎仍然存在。
这项研究表明，社交媒体上的健身励志内容对年轻人可能既有吸引力又令人信服，但似乎会带来积极和消极两方面的影响。未来的研究应旨在确认积极和消极影响的规模和强度，并研究利用理想结果和尽量减少不良结果的方法。
