Yan Xiumei, Yan Jun, Tan Chuhan, Fu Yu, Wang Shuqing
School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China.
Qingdao Beiyang Architectural Design Co., LTD., Shandong, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Mar 19;16:1515575. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1515575. eCollection 2025.
Prior literature suggests that fitness posts exposure on social media increases female body image concerns. However, little research has been conducted to examine the effect of fitness posts exposure on female body esteem.
Given that, two studies were conducted to investigate how fitness posts exposure on social media exerted an influence on female body esteem.
By using a questionnaire survey ( = 270), we in Study 1 measured participants' frequency of fitness posts exposure on social media, body esteem, body surveillance, and appearance contingent self-worth. The results showed that fitness posts exposure was significantly and positively related to female body esteem, and body surveillance played a mediating role between them. And this mediation was further moderated by appearance contingent self-worth. Simple slope analysis showed that fitness posts exposure had a significantly positive prediction on body surveillance at the high level of appearance contingent self-worth, but the prediction of fitness posts exposure was not significant at the low level of appearance contingent self-worth. Study 2 was a lab experiment, in which we randomly assigned 180 female undergraduates to the fitness-appearance exposure condition, the fitness-performance exposure condition, and the travel image exposure condition. Then, we asked participants to report body surveillance and body esteem. The results showed that participants in the fitness-appearance exposure condition reported higher body surveillance and lower body esteem than participants in the other two conditions. Consistent with Study 1, Study 2 revealed the mediating role of body surveillance between exposure condition and body esteem.
Fitness posts exposure produces a negative influence on female body esteem via the mediation of body surveillance, and this pattern is more obvious among women with high appearance contingent self-worth. Appearance-relevant content involved in fitness posts, rather than pure fitness performance, harms female body esteem.
先前的文献表明，在社交媒体上曝光健身内容会增加女性对身体形象的担忧。然而，很少有研究探讨曝光健身内容对女性身体自尊的影响。
鉴于此，进行了两项研究，以调查在社交媒体上曝光健身内容如何对女性身体自尊产生影响。
在研究1中，我们通过问卷调查（n = 270）测量了参与者在社交媒体上曝光健身内容的频率、身体自尊、身体监测和外表条件自尊。结果表明，曝光健身内容与女性身体自尊显著正相关，身体监测在两者之间起中介作用。并且这种中介作用进一步受到外表条件自尊的调节。简单斜率分析表明，在高外表条件自尊水平下，曝光健身内容对身体监测有显著的正向预测作用，但在低外表条件自尊水平下，曝光健身内容的预测作用不显著。研究2是一项实验室实验，我们将180名女大学生随机分配到健身-外表曝光组、健身-表现曝光组和旅行形象曝光组。然后，我们要求参与者报告身体监测和身体自尊情况。结果表明，健身-外表曝光组的参与者比其他两组的参与者报告了更高的身体监测和更低的身体自尊。与研究1一致，研究2揭示了身体监测在曝光条件和身体自尊之间的中介作用。
曝光健身内容通过身体监测的中介作用对女性身体自尊产生负面影响，这种模式在高外表条件自尊的女性中更为明显。健身内容中涉及外表的相关内容，而非单纯的健身表现，会损害女性身体自尊。
