Body Ideals of Undergraduate Women and the Proliferation of Social Media: An Exploratory Study

The authors conducted a study to examine women's body dissatisfaction, social comparison, and thin-ideal internalization in relation to exposure to social networking sites. Additionally, women's body dissatisfaction, social comparison, thin-ideal internalization, and exposure to social networking sites were examined in relation to their ethnic backgrounds. A survey was completed by 725 females enrolled in undergraduate programs at California State University. Participants showed higher body dissatisfaction, social comparison, and thin-ideal internalization if they were more exposed to social media sites. Differences were also found based on ethnic backgrounds; results showed that African American and Middle Eastern/Arab women's body satisfaction was not as low as that of white and Asian women.