Gow Megan L, Henderson Maddison, Henry Amanda, Roberts Lynne, Roth Heike
The George Institute for Global Health, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
School of Population Health, UNSW Medicine and Health, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Front Digit Health. 2025 Mar 12;7:1379337. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1379337. eCollection 2025.
Social networking sites may be a convenient, accessible and low-cost option for delivering health information at scale to postpartum women. However, social media use is associated with decreased body satisfaction and may contribute to psychological ill-health. Our study aimed to determine whether exposure to body-focused imagery, typical of imagery targeting postpartum women on Instagram, is associated with a reduction in state body satisfaction and state body appreciation. Secondly, we aimed to determine whether including postpartum-health-focused imagery, in conjunction with body-focused imagery, is associated with improving state body satisfaction/appreciation, compared with no postpartum health content.
A single blinded quasi-experimental survey study, recruiting women who had given birth in the previous 2-years, asked participants about key demographic information, social media use and assessed thin-ideal internalization and media appearance pressures using validated tools. Participants were then exposed to either (1) 15 body-focused images of women with a thin-average level of adiposity; (2) as per (1) PLUS 5 postpartum-health-focused images; or (3) as per (1) PLUS 15 postpartum-health-focused images. State body satisfaction/appreciation were assessed before and after image exposure.
State body satisfaction/appreciation did not change from pre- to post-image exposure in any groups and measures were not different between groups at any time point.
Short-term exposure to body-focused imagery typical of Instagram content targeting postpartum women may not alter state body satisfaction or state body appreciation. Furthermore, incorporating postpartum-health-focused imagery did not alter results. Further research investigating whether an intervention providing health information to postpartum women via social media platforms improves health outcomes may be warranted.
社交网站可能是一种方便、易访问且低成本的方式，可大规模地向产后女性提供健康信息。然而，使用社交媒体与身体满意度下降有关，可能会导致心理健康问题。我们的研究旨在确定接触以身体为重点的图像（Instagram上针对产后女性的图像中常见）是否与状态性身体满意度和状态性身体欣赏的降低有关。其次，我们旨在确定与没有产后健康内容相比，纳入以产后健康为重点的图像并结合以身体为重点的图像是否与改善状态性身体满意度/欣赏有关。
一项单盲准实验性调查研究，招募在过去两年内分娩的女性，询问参与者关键的人口统计学信息、社交媒体使用情况，并使用经过验证的工具评估瘦身理想内化和媒体外表压力。然后，参与者被暴露于以下三种情况之一：（1）15张以瘦平均脂肪水平的女性为重点的身体图像；（2）按照（1）加上5张以产后健康为重点的图像；或（3）按照（1）加上15张以产后健康为重点的图像。在图像暴露前后评估状态性身体满意度/欣赏。
在任何组中，从图像暴露前到暴露后，状态性身体满意度/欣赏均未改变，并且在任何时间点，组间测量结果均无差异。
短期接触Instagram上针对产后女性的典型以身体为重点的图像可能不会改变状态性身体满意度或状态性身体欣赏。此外，纳入以产后健康为重点的图像并没有改变结果。可能有必要进行进一步的研究，调查通过社交媒体平台向产后女性提供健康信息的干预措施是否能改善健康结果。
