The body positivity movement has been influential in society for pushing back against beauty standards, but is that influence all so positive? A study published in Computers in Human Behavior explores how sexualized representations of body positivity may serve to increase body surveillance and acceptance of plastic surgery.
Beauty ideals have been influential in popular media for a long time but have been expanded by the rise of social networking sites. An incredibly high number of adolescents and young adults utilize social media daily, using it to share and view pictures and videos, many of which serve to enforce beauty standards and exacerbate insecurity and body dissatisfaction in consumers.
The body positivity movement aimed to push back against these popular beauty ideals by emphasizing acceptance and appreciation of “every body, at every size.” Despite the respectable cause, there have been some accusations of a dark side of the movement, which can be exclusionary and/or sexualized. This study sought to explore the effects of sexualized images being used for body-positive social networking.
For their study, Giovanni Schettino and colleagues utilized 493 Italian women between the ages of 18 and 30 to serve as their sample. Participants were recruited through social media and were predominantly heterosexual and unmarried. Participants completed measures detailing their demographic information, body surveillance tendencies, body satisfaction, acceptance of cosmetic surgery, Instagram usage, and frequency of viewing sexually objectified body-positive selfies on Instagram.
Results showed that viewing sexualized body positivity images was associated with higher levels of body surveillance, a preoccupation with monitoring one’s own physical appearance. Additionally, viewing this sexualized content was associated with lower body satisfaction, which is the opposite of the intent of the body positivity movement.
The relationship between viewing this sexualized body positive content and increased monitoring and body surveillance in turn increased the acceptance of cosmetic surgery among participants. These results suggest that despite the positive intentions of the body positivity movement, sexualized versions of these images can actually have a negative effect on self-image and encourage changing appearance through plastic surgery.
“In line with the literature, such a result confirms that socio-cultural norms about appearance greatly influence women’s feelings toward their bodies. Indeed, even the pressures deriving from exposure to appearance-focused body-positive images – which is expected to reduce the value attributed by women to their bodies – led to greater acceptance of cosmetic surgery,” the researchers wrote.
“However, the latter was not the expression of an internal need but reflected the motivation to obtain social rewards deriving from appearing more attractive to others, consistent with the great value placed by women high in self-objectification on the way they look at the ‘observer’s gaze.’ This negative impact would be amplified precisely by the greater body surveillance induced by exposure to these pressures, which can also manifest themselves through sexualized body-positive images. This result seems quite relevant, given the paradox that images aimed to promote acceptance of own body can end up triggering the desire to change it.”
This study took important steps into understanding the nuances regarding images of body positivity and their effects. Despite this, there are a few limitations. One such limitation is that this study relied solely on self-report measures, which are vulnerable to bias. Additionally, the cross-sectional nature of this study does not allow us to draw conclusions about causation.
“The findings underpin that when body-positive content conveys a sexualized female representation,” it may lead to “detrimental consequences not limited to treating own body as an object but extended to a very worrying threat to women’s well-being: the intention to undergo cosmetic surgery procedures to gain social rewards,” the researchers concluded.
The study, “The dark side of #bodypositivity: The relationships between sexualized body-positive selfies on Instagram and acceptance of cosmetic surgery“, was authored by Giovanni Schettino, Miriam Capasso, and Daniela Caso.
