Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
Body Image. 2018 Dec;27:187-195. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2018.10.002. Epub 2018 Oct 22.
Thinspiration and fitspiration are classes of social media content characterised by idealised depictions of excessively thin and overtly fit/lean bodies, respectively. It is currently unknown whether and how exposure to thinspiration and fitspiration relates to symptom severity within high-risk clinical populations. Thus, in a clinical sample of individuals with eating disorders, we evaluated a model explaining how exposure to thinspiration and fitspiration relates to eating disorder symptoms. Individuals with self-reported eating disorders (N = 228, 47% with anorexia, 93% female) completed measures of image-centric social media use, thinspiration and fitspiration exposure, physical appearance comparisons, and symptom severity. Results showed that more frequent use of image-centric social media was associated with more frequent exposures to both thinspiration and fitspiration. In turn, these exposures were associated with more frequent physical appearance comparisons, and through these, greater symptom severity. Physical appearance comparisons mediated the relationships of both thinspiration and fitspiration exposure with symptom severity. Exposure to fitspiration was more common than exposure to thinspiration. However, thinspiration exposure evidenced stronger associations with symptom severity than fitspiration exposure. In conclusion, our model provides a useful account of how eating disorder symptoms relate to thinspiration and fitspiration exposure, and to image-centric social media more generally.
瘦身灵感和健身灵感是社交媒体内容的两类，分别以极度瘦弱和明显健康/精瘦的身体的理想化描绘为特征。目前尚不清楚接触瘦身灵感和健身灵感是否以及如何与高风险临床人群中的症状严重程度相关。因此，在有饮食障碍的临床样本中，我们评估了一个解释接触瘦身灵感和健身灵感与饮食障碍症状之间关系的模型。有饮食障碍自我报告的个体（N=228，47%为厌食症，93%为女性）完成了以图像为中心的社交媒体使用、瘦身灵感和健身灵感暴露、外貌比较以及症状严重程度的测量。结果表明，更频繁地使用以图像为中心的社交媒体与更频繁地接触瘦身灵感和健身灵感相关。反过来，这些接触与更频繁的外貌比较有关，而这些比较则与更严重的症状有关。外貌比较中介了瘦身灵感和健身灵感暴露与症状严重程度的关系。与瘦身灵感暴露相比，健身灵感暴露更为常见。然而，瘦身灵感暴露与症状严重程度的关联比健身灵感暴露更强。总之，我们的模型提供了一个有用的解释，说明饮食障碍症状如何与瘦身灵感和健身灵感暴露以及更普遍的以图像为中心的社交媒体相关。
