Chase Koda ’27

Body and Mind: Instagram’s Damaging Effects on Body Image and Mental Health

In today’s society, finding a young adult who isn’t active on at least one major social media platform is almost impossible. One platform in particular, Instagram, is especially massive, boasting nearly 2 billion active users today. Instagram is an app with a focus on sharing photos and visual content, which receives feedback in the form of likes or comments (Dixon). While these likes and possible positive feedback can be fun to receive, the cycle of sharing and getting reactions can become especially negative regarding the body. A lot of content shared on Instagram has a large emphasis on bodies, whether it’s models showing off unrealistic or unhealthy body types, body positivity posts, or even just self-body appreciation. With such an immense focus on people’s bodies, negatively and positively, things like body image, which is how someone feels about their body and how they view it, can be affected. Instagram produces harmful effects that impact young women’s and men’s mental health and body image by promoting the thin ideal and causing self-objectification in women, as well as promoting a muscular ideal which leads to comparison and magnifies the effects of internalized homophobia in men.

Young women are often the topic of conversation when it comes to body image and Instagram. This isn’t for no reason, as the pressure social media places on women and their bodies is immense. This pressure didn’t just start from social media however, it has been going on for decades in numerous other media formats where “images of the ‘ideal’ body shape have infiltrated traditional mass media sources, such as woman’s fashion magazines and television, for many years. These images have been found to promote unattainable beauty ideals of glamorous and often photo-shopped women who are generally young, tall, moderately breasted, and incredibly thin” (Holland and Tiggemann 101). While the beauty standard is ever-changing, different mediums like Instagram facilitate this ideal that women must be thin to be attractive. Whether it’s advertisements from clothing brands or posts from celebrity influencers or blogs, the thin body ideal can be seen everywhere. While some people may be able to fit this ideal, it can be damaging both mentally and physically to those who pursue it, or even just view it. Not only can the thin body ideal be damaging, but it is nearly impossible to achieve. Promoting an unrealistic body ideal, in which many who reach for it fail, creates body dissatisfaction among women (Holland and Tiggemann 101). This type of body dissatisfaction can lead women to take extreme measures to reach the ideal, which could seriously impact both physical and mental health. Research has shown that viewing images of ‘thin ideal’ posts on Instagram affects the moods and body satisfaction of young women, as both saw decreases after brief exposure (Cohen 1558). Even in a short period the posts showcasing the thin ideal negatively affected the young women who saw them and decreased their body satisfaction. If damage is done to one’s state of mind and body image even after short exposure, the long-term impacts of viewing these kinds of posts on Instagram could be even more severe.

Instagram also contributes to the self-objectification of young women and their bodies. The theory of objectification is that women’s bodies are seen as objects, in that they are to be observed and judged based on their appearance, which leads to the monitoring of one’s body and objectifying of self. This causes one to believe they are only worth what they look like in another’s eyes (Holland & Tiggemann 101). When the point of sharing pictures on Instagram starts to receive feedback on appearance from others, self-objectification starts to occur. Young women often find themselves in positions where to gain traction or be viewed more on Instagram, they must post images of their body and try to fit into what the ideal body type is, which leads to the editing of pictures and photoshopping, which contributes to the body dissatisfaction of the person posting, and possibly those who view it. The dissatisfaction that is felt leads one to post more in hopes that they will receive likes and comments to validate their attractiveness, instead of finding it from within themselves, creating a self-objectifying cycle that ruins mental health and body image. One thing that has become a large part of Instagram in the past couple of years is the trend of body-positive content. This content aims to uplift those who may not have what society deems as beautiful, and embrace themselves for how they are. Content like this has the chance to increase the moods and body satisfaction of the young women who view it (Cohen 1559). While this can be a great thing, content like this can still lead to the self-objectification of women’s bodies. In context, Britt Harper and Marika Tiggemann say that objectifying words and images can lead to self-objectification even when the intention is positive (qtd. in Cohen 1559). When content that is so appearance-oriented is constantly shown because Instagram is an appearance-focused platform, it leads to the prioritization of one’s body and how it can be perceived. This causes issues with self-esteem, as when self-objectification occurs, someone is now relying on validation from others to be able to ‘love’ how they look. The women affected can lose the ability to show themselves love because their focus is on how their bodies are to be viewed by others. The lack of self-esteem makes healthily navigating a platform like Instagram extremely hard.

While it is often less talked about, men’s body image and mental health are also impacted by Instagram, like with the muscular body ideal. Different from how society pushes the thin ideal for women, men are often pressured to be muscular or have muscular features. Being muscular is seen as being the most masculine or ‘manly’ along with other trait-related factors such as height. While there has been variation in the last couple of decades in the ideal body image, they all involve being muscular to some degree, or at least showcasing lean and cut muscle structure. With Instagram being an appearance-aimed platform, the muscular ideal for men is pushed in different forms, such as the vast community of fitness/bodybuilding and its content. Research on how men’s body image changed when exposed to muscular images from Instagram posts showed that they were negatively influenced, which is related to research conducted by Duane Hargraeves and Tiggemann that found that the muscular ideal shown in media such as TV also negatively impacted men’s body image (qtd. in Sumter et al. 133). One outcome of this negative body image created by Instagram and the muscle ideal is trait appearance-based comparison. This comparison involves men comparing themselves to the muscle ideal which ends up contributing to their low body satisfaction and body image. Zoe Brown and Tiggemann found that those who showed higher trait appearance-based comparison orientation were more susceptible to comparing themselves when exposed to images from Instagram (qtd. Sumter 134). Those who tend to compare themselves more were much more negatively affected by the muscle ideal images than those who didn’t. Trait-based comparison involves comparing traits that are genetic and are either very hard to physically change, or impossible to change. This is a serious problem, because as previously discussed, trying to reach an ideal or image that is near impossible can deteriorate one’s self-esteem and impact their state of mind.

Instagram also contributes to the effects internalized homophobia has on men. Internalized homophobia is when queer people have internalized the social norms of heterosexuality and the fact that society has deemed homosexuality as inferior. This affects the way that those with internalized homophobia express themselves and treat those who don’t fit in the box of what is considered normal. Since having the muscular ideal is what society has deemed the most masculine, “nonheterosexual men who feel somewhat negative about their sexual orientation—those high in internalized homophobia—being muscular is an appealing strategy for straight acting or not appearing gay or effeminate to others” (Sumter et al. 134). A significant part of internalized homophobia is the fact that those who deal with it try to fit in with men who conform to a heteronormative world, which is a world that does not openly embrace queer men, and if it does, it is only when they have suppressed any signs of their sexuality. This suppression of sexuality and expression can make a sizable impact on the mental health of some queer men as they feel they can’t be themselves or feel accepted unless they are someone they are not. Other queer men with internalized homophobia have internalized it so deeply or dealt with it for so long that it may not seem like it negatively affects their mental health, and rather it may have rooted itself to create different problems that they are unaware of. This leads back to Instagram, as research shows that queer men with more internalized homophobia were more susceptible to feeling negative about their body image when shown posts of the muscular ideal (Sumter et al. 134). Since queer men with internalized homophobia have to prove their masculinity more than a straight man would, the muscular ideal affects their mental health even more as there is more pressure to fit in. A study by Sindy Sumpter, Drew Cingel, and Leon Hollander was conducted with men who lived in countries that were more accepting of homosexuality, so it can be inferred that the effects of Instagram and the muscle ideal have an even more substantial effect on queer men who live in more conservative and unaccepting countries (134). These queer men are also most likely closeted with more internalized homophobia and have to deal with more pressure from their community and the content they see on Instagram. All of these factors impacting the internalized homophobia of queer men lead to drastic negative effects on self-esteem and mental health.

The body image and mental health of young women and men are negatively impacted by Instagram, which relies on and spotlights the appearance of its users. While many of the issues presented, like internalized homophobia or self-objectification, are not always entirely created by Instagram, research has shown that the platform does contribute to their effects on young adults. While it seems that numerous social media platforms have started adding features to help users’ mental health, like how Instagram users can remove visible likes and limit comments, these features fall short of addressing the larger issue at hand. More body-positive content on Instagram is also something that has been proven to help, but that may only be a bandaid on something that requires much more to fix. There is only so much that can be done without addressing the major issue of how social media is used and continues to function. A nuanced solution needs to be formulated with the prioritization of all users’ mental health.

Works Cited

Cohen, Rachel, et al. “BoPo on Instagram: An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Viewing Body Positive Content on Young Women’s Mood and Body Image.” New Media & Society , vol. 21, no. 7, 2019, pp. 1546–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819826530.

Dixon, Stacy Jo. “Instagram - Statistics and Facts.” Statista , 24 Apr. 2024, www.statista.com/topics/1882/instagram/#topicOverview. Accessed 5 May 2024.

Holland, Grace, and Marika Tiggemann. “A Systematic Review of the Impact of the Use of Social Networking Sites on Body Image and Disordered Eating Outcomes.” Body Image , vol. 17, 2016, pp. 100–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.02.008.

Sumter, Sindy R., et al. “Navigating a Muscular and Sexualized Instagram Feed: An Experimental Study Examining How Instagram Affects Both Heterosexual and Nonheterosexual Men’s Body Image.” Psychology of Popular Media , vol. 11, no. 2, 2022, pp. 125–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000355.