Helpful or harmful? A qualitative analysis of young adults’ perceptions about the body positivity movement on social media
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The Body Positivity Movement on social media (BP-SM) aims for radical acceptance of one’s body and rejection of unrealistic beauty standards. Identifying young adult’s perceptions of BP-SM could provide evidence to support BP-SM as a naturalistic intervention for decreasing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The goal of this study is to understand young adult perceptions of BP-SM and to describe differences in views by gender and race/ethnicity. Data was collected from young adult (ages 18–24) members of the National MyVoice Text Message Cohort. Participants completed questions regarding their perceptions of BP-SM (N = 272 and N = 285 respectively) via text, which were analyzed via inductive thematic analysis. Almost three-quarters of participants reported positive perceptions of BP-SM (n = 199, 73.2%), with women and non-Hispanic white participants more likely than men and young adults of color to report positive perceptions. However, 35.2% of the sample thought BP-SM could be harmful, with 14.6% of the total sample’s responses categorized as having weight stigmatizing themes. Further research is needed to understand which aspects of BP-SM are helpful or harmful in the prevention of disordered eating and to whom, and how to address the weight stigma that persists within BP-SM.
