Body Image and Media Use: A Guide for Parents

Body image is a person’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings related to their physical appearance.

Body dissatisfaction is an aspect of body image relating to feeling unhappy with one’s physical appearance, or certain aspects of it.

Body dysmorphia involves a perceptual distortion or a mismatch between the way that one’s body actually looks and the way that one perceives it. This can be with overall body shape or size or specific body parts or features, such as muscle dysmorphia, which is a specific preoccupation with feeling insufficiently muscular (increasingly common in boys).

Body surveillance involves frequent monitoring, evaluating, and critiquing one’s body in anticipation of how it will be evaluated by others.

Research on adult women has shown that positive body image is important for overall well-being, says Elizabeth A. Daniels, PhD, Professor and Director of the Centre for Appearance Research at University of the West of England.  Other research with girls ages 12 to 16 years old has found that body appreciation, which is a component of positive body image, is related to less dieting, less alcohol consumption, and less smoking, as well as greater intuitive eating, notes Daniels. Research with girls and boys ages 9 to 11 also finds that their body appreciation is related to higher body esteem, positive affect, less dieting, lower internalization of appearance ideals, and less body surveillance, says Daniels.

Puberty and adolescence is a critical developmental period for youth as their bodies change and they start to put increased importance on peers and peer acceptance. “We know from the research that when girls hit puberty, their risk of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders goes up,” says psychologist Jennifer Mills, PhD, CPsych, Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University. Teens are in a developmental period where the questions “How do I fit in? What do I need to look like to be considered really beautiful, or really muscular and desirable, and valuable to other people?” become of paramount importance.  The effects of online media and social media on body image during this time are heightened by these normal developmental processes.

In addition, the normal changes to bodies that happen at puberty are more likely to make a girl’s body less “in line” with a thin beauty ideal that is particularly prevalent in media images, notes Mills.

Exposure to content online that features idealized bodies contains social information about appearance and body ideals that can lead to body dissatisfaction, says Jasmine Fardouly, PhD, Sydney Horizon Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney.  First, viewing this content can lead someone to internalize the body ideal as something to strive for, and then subsequently engage in a process of comparing themselves to the ideal and judging oneself to be unattractive, fueling body dissatisfaction.

While exposure to media has always had an effect on youth and adult body image, the advent of social media has sharpened the risk. In the past, teens were consuming images in media but not putting their own bodies out for public mass consumption and quantifiable feedback.  “Now teenagers have this additional pressure to not only consume, but actually to put their own bodies on display almost as a performance – to gain likes, to gain followings, and to even interact with their peers. When that happens, people are much more conscious about their body and there are constant comparisons with other people’s bodies,” says Jason Nagata, PhD, Associate Professor, Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.

The most popular social media platforms among children and adolescents – TikTok and Instagram – also have the highest likelihood of stimulating appearance-focused interactions due to their specific features, says Chelly Maes, PhD, Assistant Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Research Center in Information and Communication. These features include being visually focused, allowing the use of beauty filters, and the popularization of influencer content that promotes idealized bodies via “thinspiration” or “fitspiration” posts.

Constantly scrutinizing images of other people, and scrutinizing pictures of oneself before posting on social media can take up a lot of time and energy for young people, and this continual active engagement with body-related social media images is associated with increased levels of body dissatisfaction for both boys and girls, says Mills. 

Worsening self-esteem from constantly comparing your own body to unrealistic, idealized bodies can eventually lead from negative body image to development of eating disorders, notes Nagata.

While there seems to be increased general understanding about the prevalence of thinness and weight loss content online that affects girls’ negative body image and restrictive eating behaviors, “people don’t realize that there are substantial pressures for boys and men related to body image,” says Nagata. 

While boys may not be as susceptible to thinness and weight loss content, the idealized masculine body ideal increasingly found online is highly muscular and can exacerbate these feelings of insufficient muscularity or dissatisfaction about being too scrawny for boys, notes Nagata. Research shows boys who spend more time on Instagram or other image-based social media platforms have a higher risk of body dissatisfaction, muscle dissatisfaction, and even use of anabolic steroids in the future, says Nagata. Other body-related behaviors boys may become fixated on include excessive exercise, protein overconsumption while restricting carbohydrates and fats, and excessive use of other muscle-building or performance-enhancing substances or drugs.

Boys are more likely to allow public followings on their social media accounts, and more likely to post full body photos of themselves that depict muscularity and leanness than girls, says Nagata.

Height dissatisfaction is also very common among young men, and there are “dark corners” of the internet where young men consider some extreme strategies to change their appearance to fit into a tall and muscular body ideal, says Mills.

Pay attention to how you talk about your own body – research shows that the behavior of parents regarding their bodies and appearance significantly affects the body image development of children, says Maes. 

If children hear their parents talk negatively about their own appearance or be anxious about the way that they look, then that attitude can be taken on passively by children, agrees Fardouly.

Adults need to recognize and appreciate that their comments matter, says Mills. “Unfortunately, a lot of individuals with eating disorders can remember an instance of a teacher saying something insensitive or a coach saying something really negative about their body. All adults in a child’s world need to be really mindful that their words can be remembered for a long time and negative comments – or even comments that are seen to be taken as negative by the child – can really have a lasting impact.”

It may feel counterintuitive, but focusing compliments on body-related comments can be harmful to youth body image, say many experts. “We want to be careful about compliments. We think, ‘It’s a good thing to say nice things about how people look.’ But unfortunately that actually sends the message that appearance is a centrally important issue, so we want to be really mindful of not doing that too much,” says Daniels.

Instead of overfocusing on appearance, it helps a child when you focus your compliments on other aspects that are wonderful about them, says Daniels. This could be how they are a good friend, or good at an activity or sport, or showing resilience and persistence, for example.

How families talk about their child’s physical appearance, what they eat, or how they exercise can also have significant effects on body image in childhood, say many experts.

Try to notice how you talk about your child’s body and body-related behaviors, and attempt to focus comments away from appearance and more to health and functionality, says Maes.

Research on adult women shows that they increased their own appreciation of their body’s functionality by reflecting and doing exercises focused on what their body can do and how they can take care of their body, says Maes. “This led to diminishing of self-objectification and body dissatisfaction among these women.” Maes suggests this approach can transfer well to adolescents to shift the focus from body appearance to functionality.

Elise Hu, podcaster, journalist, and author of Raising Us, shares an example of how this could work when a child or adolescent is trying on clothes. “Instead of immediately going to ‘That looks cute on you. What a great length or what a great color.’ – the first thing we always ask is, ‘How does that feel on your body? Can you move? Is it too tight here? Can you run? Can you jump? Can you do things? How does that material feel? Is it scratchy, is it itchy?’”  This helps focus the activity less on how a child looks in clothes to how functional the items are for the way they want to move in the world.

Helping youth reframe the self-critical lens they may have about their bodies by helping them identify what they like about their bodies can also be helpful, says Daniels. “Shifting the frame can be really beneficial in terms of getting away from these negative ruminating kinds of cognitions around appearance.”

Most societies have “one look” that is promoted as being ideal and attractive for each gender, notes Fardouly, with a related message that it’s important to match these beauty ideals in order to be successful and happy. Help children understand that people are born in all sizes and shapes – and the “one look” is by definition unattainable for most people. 

Encourage critical thinking about how believing in a narrow definition of “beautiful” may be restricting joy and self-acceptance. It can help to also remind older children that corporations and influencers are monetizing their attention and are incentivized to show extreme versions of the ideal in order to attract more eyeballs, notes Mills.

Help your child reframe when they express body dissatisfaction, suggests Daniels. “If a child says, ‘I just don’t like this part of my body,’ redirect or reframe as –’Let’s talk about what your body can do. Are you able to run fast or are you able to pick up something heavy?’  Help a child generate what they like about their body.” 

This doesn’t mean making your child feel bad about having negative feelings about their body, however. “Acknowledge that everybody has feelings about their bodies, that not liking their body on a certain day or at a particular time is part of being human,” notes Daniels. Validate how they are feeling and try to expand the thinking to all the good things their body can do or things they may like.

Even if social media use is restricted until later teen years, talking early about how social platforms work, and discussing the idealized content seen online, can help prepare children for the appearance-focused social media environment they will eventually find themselves in. “It’s better to learn from an early age and talk about it so they can learn to be more resilient and more literate towards it,” says Maes.

“Providing a lot of scaffolding and teaching around social media use when a child is ready to start is really critical,” says Daniels. “You don’t just give kids the keys to a car and say, ‘Go drive.’ They’ve taken hours and hours and hours of driving instruction, they’ve been monitored –  we need to think about that similarly for social media.” 

Rather than targeting a specific age where social media access is granted, parents should judge the cognitive and emotional maturity of their individual child to cope with the responsibility of independent social media use, says Daniels.

Knowledge that social media content has been filtered or edited to look ideal is not a full cure to its effects on body image. Research shows that even when young people are shown images that they know are Photoshopped or edited, it doesn’t change their desire to look like the ideal image being presented, says Mills. “Putting disclaimers or warning labels that images have been altered – it doesn’t change  young people’s desire to look a certain way because those images become internalized as ‘This is what’s beautiful, this is what I want to look like, this is what I need to look like in order to feel like I am attractive, and that I fit in, and that I have value.’”

Research on preadolescent girls indicates that consumption of content featuring appearance-focused behaviors is most problematic in terms of later negative body image outcomes, says Daniels. This includes following beauty accounts or watching makeup tutorials, she notes. “Based on those patterns, we suggest to parents that they consider some restrictions of pre-adolescent girls’ social media use to limit their involvement with the appearance-focused behaviors. For example, you might allow girls to follow family members, but not celebrities, or allow them to post photos of pets rather than themselves.”

“Media literacy is very crucial here,” says Maes. When youth start understanding which content makes them feel better or worse about their bodies and mental health, and controlling and recognizing their emotional responses to beauty ideals, it can help them change the effects. “We see from intervention research that adolescents who have high effective social media literacy post fewer pictures where they show the perfect appearance, report higher levels of self-esteem, and report less feelings of jealousy and comparison processes with beauty ideals on social media,” says Maes.

Viewing social media content together with children once they have social media access can be an important process to build their skills to recognize how content may be affecting their body image.  For example, if a very idealized body picture presents itself, you can ask questions such as “Do you think they use filters? How many pictures do you think they took before they got this perfect picture? Do they maybe use a lot of makeup?” says Maes. This helps the child develop the skills to think about what might be body-positive content or not.

It may seem harmless to use “beauty filters” to improve the look of an image posted on social media, but research shows use of these filters is linked to a more positive view of body-altering procedures offline, say many experts. It’s very human to want to be consistent in how people perceive you, and reflect offline how you look in the online world, notes Maes. “If someone uses online beauty tools like beauty filters, they also have better attitudes towards these tools in the offline world, such as the uses of cosmetic surgery,” says Maes.

Social media doesn’t only contain content that is idealized and harmful to body image – there is also content that challenges narrow beauty ideals and promotes the acceptance of diverse physical appearance, notes Fardouly. Research suggests that viewing this content can improve body image.

A recent study showed that adolescents who saw more body positivity content reported higher body satisfaction. “The type of content adolescents interact with is crucial, not just the time spent using social media,” says Maes.

Social media content that promotes certain body ideals often contains advertisements that suggest that you need to buy certain products, or go on certain diets, or spend your money and invest effort in order to match these beauty ideals, says Fardouly.  Helping youth understand that the purpose of the content is to make them feel “less than” and motivate them to spend money can help them develop skills to resist content that feeds negative body image. 

Advise your child to be wary about what they see on social media, and consider whether the body or weight advice being shared by an individual or influencer may be being paid to provide advice that is incomplete or incorrect, suggests Nagata. “For any health information, they should consider the source, check the author and date, and look for evidence supporting the information.”

“People post all kinds of stuff on social media about  weight, or gaining muscle, or eating certain types of foods. Some of it may be okay, but some of it may just be incorrect. Take it with a grain of salt and think about who is actually posting this and whether they are getting advertising deals. There’s a lot of surreptitious advertising – it doesn’t look like an advertisement, but it actually is,” says Fardouly.

What are signs that a child or adolescent has crossed over from being appearance-conscious to having a body image problem or eating disorder? Watch for these signs that you may need to consult with a doctor or other professional for help:

• • Your child becomes very picky about eating or calories 
  • Your child becomes concerned about eating for reasons to do with muscles, weight, or shape
  • A young child connects their exercise with calories and/or muscles
  • Preoccupation with appearance, body size, weight, or exercise such that it interferes with quality of life or takes up all free time
  • Withdrawal from normal activities or friends because of concerns about exercise or body size
  • Extreme food restriction or dieting
  • Binging/purging food

(Mills, Nagata)

Research shows that teens girls who took just a three day break from social media reported lower body surveillance and less body shame, reports Daniels. Half the girls in the study also reported a more positive mental state from the break, she notes. “Doing a short break is kind of a reset for young people that could help them with improving their body image and mental health as well.”

Parents can help boost body positivity by encouraging participation in activities that boost a sense of identity and self and are not appearance-focused, suggests Fardouly. This can include sports or investing in other interests that take the focus off physical appearance. “That can make [youth] more resilient to some of the [body-focused ]messages that they will encounter during their development.”

There is still much to be learned about how social interactions with AI chatbots affect body image, but early investigations indicate some concern is warranted.  While asking popular bots about how to love one’s body often give answers similar to what the research says, different inputs will prompt entirely different tones and answers that can cause problems for adolescents who are vulnerable to body dysmorphia or eating disorders, warns Maes. 

An example: “If you tellChatGPT, ‘I feel bad about my body. I want to lose ten kilograms or 10 pounds,’ it will give you instructions on how to do it and how to do it fast. There’s no safety precautions surrounding this and I think that can pose a huge problem. The children who are the early adopters of these chatbots are not taken into account.”

Disordered weight-related behaviors or symptoms tend to happen in secrecy, notes Mills, who suggests that parents can engage in healthy behaviors together with children. These can include exercising together, planning meals, and trying to eat the same foods together as a family together at the same table as much as possible. “Being involved in our kids’ lives is so important – and it’s hard.”

Teachers and schools also need training to support youth body image, suggests Daniels.  Work by the Embrace Collective, a nonprofit focused on positive body image, indicates that appearance-based teasing that is common in middle schools causes harm and educators can play an important part in not letting this behavior slide, she says. “An example here is saying in response to peer teasing, ‘In this classroom, we don’t talk like that. We treat each other with respect.’”

Teachers should also avoid having classroom assignments or exercises involving food or weight  because it focuses undue attention to the body and appearance, and it might be quite triggering for youth who have disordered eating, says Daniels.