The Impact of Social Media on Body Image, Eating, and Health

Social media captivates like nothing else, drawing us into a kaleidoscope of digitally mediated relationships, information and disinformation, and an endless experience of virtual window shopping. We don't always know what we are buying, however.

We’ve embarked on a vast social experiment without giving much thought to how it will play out. The scope of the problem is hard to overstate—between 2005 and 2021, as reported by the Pew Research Center, the average number of Americans regularly using social media has gone from 5 percent to over 70 percent, and rising.

Mirror, Mirror

As the science-fiction quality of the metaverse (described by Neal Stephenson in his classic 1992 novel Snow Crash) becomes a reality, there is no question that what it means to be human is shifting, with uncertainty, promise, and peril.

More than anything, social media has become a mirror through which we catch a glimpse of ourselves, literally through selfies and photos taken by others, and through how we react to one another, through our experience of online connectedness both on major social media platforms as well as through dating apps and live interactive online events—and through the prospect of fully immersive experiences in virtual reality, within which we can take on any identity we wish in a world freed from the laws of physics and logic.

Researchers, too, have been paying attention to social media, how the digital migration to living online more than in the real world is affecting people. From concerns that we are becoming more pathologically narcissistic, immersed in our smartphone realities where we present a sugar-coated version of ourselves while comparing ourselves to impossibly perfect, processed images of others and their glamorous lives, to getting ground down through the virtual meat market of online dating, to losing critical attachment skills required for intimate relationships, to the potential effect on physical health, to the effects on political systems and global stability, the need to understand what social media is doing to us is more pressing now than ever before.

With the above in mind, four recent studies highlight emerging correlations between social media and dating app use and health outcomes.

Study 1

Mathew and colleagues (2022) sought to understand how social media use may lead to body dissatisfaction. Following a group of over 6,000 adults (about 60 percent women, average age in their early 50s, ranging from 19-92 years old) and using standardized measures, researchers asked participants about social media use, body dissatisfaction, body mass index (BMI), and a range of demographic variables. They followed them over the course of several years, starting in 2015, to determine whether social media use predicted future body dissatisfaction.

They found that increased social media use predicted body dissatisfaction one year later, and body dissatisfaction also predicted greater social media use, with a small but significant effect size. There were differences between men and women: Social media use and body dissatisfaction worked both ways for women, but for men, while body satisfaction predicted social media use, the reverse was not true in this sample. Being younger, female, and having a higher BMI were associated with greater body image dissatisfaction.

Study 2

Portingalea and colleagues focused on how women’s dating app use affected daily mood, body image, and eating behavior. Nearly 300 women ranging in age from 18 to 48 participated in this study, completing a baseline survey of lifetime dating app use, partner preference with a focus on whether they sought idealized or realistic partners in terms of physical traits, and the degree of their own rejection sensitivity related to looks. Researchers followed them with a smartphone-based assessment daily for one week, rating daily experiences of body dissatisfaction, disordered eating urges (e.g. to binge eat), and mood.

One-third of participants showed a correlation between lifetime dating app use and both disordered eating urges and negative mood. Neither idealized partner preference nor rejection sensitivity were correlated with eating or mood in this study.

Study 3

Carter and colleagues looked at whether the coherence of sense of self, known as “self-concept clarity”, influenced social media users to compare themselves with online depictions of idealized slender bodies. Near 500 women aged 18 to 25 participated in this study, completing a measure of self-concept clarity and body image dissatisfaction, rating experimental images showing either idealized bodies or neutral comparisons.

Participants with lower self-concept clarity compared themselves more with idealized body images and consequently reported greater body image dissatisfaction. The findings suggest that having a less well-developed sense of self increases the risk of negative reactions when browsing social media.

Study 4

Lee and colleagues recruited 251 undergraduate students for a landmark early study looking at how physical health may be affected by the stress associated with social media use. In addition to demographic information, participants completed a composite measure of social media use, focusing on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, to estimate total social media load.

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The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ15) was used for somatic symptoms (such as headache, body aches, and chest pain), as well as depression. Participants' use of health care was assessed based on how many times they’d visited a health center or physician’s office, or otherwise sought medical care for a medical condition, in the prior three months. Data were collected before the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, participants’ blood was drawn and tested for C-reactive protein (CRP), a common marker of inflammation.

They found that greater social media use was associated with increased somatic symptoms, regardless of depression symptoms. Greater social media use was associated with more healthcare visits, also independent of depression. Finally, controlling for other factors (demographics, birth control use, depression, healthcare use), CRP levels were significantly elevated among those reporting greater social media use.

A Call to Action?

Emerging research on social media use is concerning. Social media use is associated with negative psychological and general health outcomes, ranging from body-image dissatisfaction, problematic eating, greater healthcare utilization for physical symptoms, and potential negative effects on physiology (e.g. increased inflammatory blood markers). The observation that low self-concept clarity leaves users vulnerable to body-image dissatisfaction is noteworthy; low self-concept clarity has also been associated with difficulty leaving unsatisfying relationships.

Future research is needed to replicate or refute these findings, to map out the exact mechanisms by which social media may adversely impact health, and to work out ways in which social media may be useful and even help improve physical and emotional health.

Social media and internet dating companies interested in the public good can use these data to ensure that the tools they provide are not causing harm—and preferably to improve users' health. As the public becomes more aware of the pros and cons of social media use, market forces are likely to increase the demand for companies to work on behalf of customers while also looking to the bottom line.

As families and individuals make choices about social media, it is of critical importance that they be armed with up-to-date information about the impact of such behavior on health and well-being. For parents, this research adds to the growing body of cautionary information and is a call to get educated and manage social media immersion. For healthcare providers, assessing patients for social media use is a key element of treatment planning.

This research shows that it’s not only younger folks who are at risk from social media but also adults across the lifespan. There's no denying that social media and all the other promises of evolving information technology and machine learning hold great potential to improve quality of life, but only if we slow down and study the effect of these spectacular new tools and learn to use them wisely.