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This post was co-authored by Julie Haupt, a professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University.
As a researcher interested in media and body image, I was driving to work one day when the words to Colbie Callait’s song, Try, came on the radio, including these lyrics:
You don't have to try so hard
You don't have to, give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don't have to change a single thing
Take your make-up off, let your hair down
Take a breath, look into the mirror, at yourself
Don't you like you? 'Cause I like you.
This body positivity message is part of a movement that appears to be growing in strength and is a direct response to the stereotypical ways that media represents women. Messages in popular music and videos, for example, often focus on the importance of appearance and present a very specific unobtainable view of beauty. Not surprisingly, research has demonstrated a direct link between the way that media objectifies and sexualizes women’s bodies and the development of poor body image in women. In light of those discouraging findings, this song felt like a breath of fresh air.
Fortunately, body positivity is becoming more common on social media (with the hashtag #bopo) and women tend to feel better about their bodies after viewing positive posts regarding healthy body image. This body positivity is more than sheer acceptance of one’s current physical state, but involves appreciation for the body, including a focus on how the body feels, functions, and what it can do. This trend led me to ask the question: Does listening to body-positive music influence body positivity?
Colleagues and I conducted three studies to examine this question that were recently published in the journal, Psychology of Popular Media Culture. First, we had women watch Colbie Caillat’s music video, Try, while others viewed Selena Gomez’s video, Good for You, which is all about looking good for a man. Not surprisingly, women felt better about their own bodies after listening to Colbie Caillat.
Then, to take a deeper look and control for rhythm, melody, tone, and singer, we wrote two versions of a song, only changing the lyrics. As an example, part of the body positive song lyrics read:
"Mirror mirror on the wall, I don’t want to change at all.
Because I know I’m beautiful. I have flaws I love them all."
Alternatively, the body objectifying lyrics read:
"Mirror mirror on the wall, I just want to change it all.
No one thinks I’m beautiful, so many flaws. I hate them all."
Again, women listened to one of the two songs, and generally, women felt implicitly better about their own bodies when listening to the body positive lyrics. These studies suggest that listening to body positive music can promote better body image in women in just two to three minutes (at least compared to listening to body objectifying music).
Building on that finding, our final study in this investigation included a neutral song that did not talk about body at all. The lyrics included these words:
"Mirror mirror on the wall, of the yellow entry hall.
This house is colored many-fold, some are pastels some are bold."
The entire song is all about appearance—but it describes a house.
When these neutral lyrics were used, we found few differences between listening to the neutral song and the body positive song. However, when we controlled for women with pre-existing body image concerns, we found that those with body image concerns actually reported worse body image after listening to either appearance-related song as compared to the neutral song.
Perhaps the impact of listening to body positivity in music is even more nuanced, especially for those with body image concerns than we previously suspected. Such concerns might have particular implications for teens who are in a highly susceptible stage of life where the development of their identities, including body image, may be strongly impacted depending on their music choices. Thus, for these individuals, it may be that the best choice of music is one that isn’t related to appearance at all, as even body positive music appears to be triggering at least in the short term. It may be that a longer history with body positivity music may have a more positive impact, especially if combined with a media literacy program.
Even with the mixed findings, I applaud those artists and media producers who are actively involved in creating body-positive music and other media and for those who support a body positivity movement. We know that body-objectifying media can have impacts on the larger society when many consume this media and develop negative thoughts concerning body image.
For those of us who are parents, we can teach our children to make intentional choices about the music they listen to and the messages popular media portrays. We can also be discerning listeners ourselves and purposefully choose music that lifts us to higher places. To this end, perhaps a slight deviation on Christina Aguilera’s lyrics from the song “Beautiful” is appropriate here:
"You are beautiful, no matter what they say.
Words [can] bring you [up or] down."
