“I Love My Body, but Hers is Better!” Body Positivity and Social Media Among College Women

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how college women interpret and negotiate body positivity messages that appear alongside unattainable body image ideals on social media. The sample consisted of 44 undergraduate college women between the ages of 18 and 23. Methods included semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Using content analysis, the following key themes were identified: a persistent culture of comparison online that reinforced a narrow body ideal alongside an imperative to love your body at any size; skepticism about whether the body positivity movement could create meaningful or enduring cultural change; and the use of fat talk and other self-disparaging online strategies to mitigate critique from others and elicit compliments. Results suggest that women endeavored to internalize the values of body positivity even as they struggled to enact them online. Social media, an ever-changing environment, emerged as a key social and developmental context within which emerging adults negotiate body image ideologies.