Can video games make kids feel better about their bodies?

A study involving over 1,000 9–13-year-old boys and girls found that children who played Super U Story, an adventure video game for Roblox, showed slightly better state body satisfaction compared to children who played Rainbow Friends 2 Story immediately after the game. However, their change in body satisfaction did not differ from the group that was completing a web-based word search. The paper was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Body satisfaction refers to the extent to which individuals feel positively about their physical appearance and bodily characteristics. It involves perceptions, thoughts, and emotions related to one’s body shape, size, and overall look.

Higher body satisfaction is associated with greater self-esteem and psychological well-being. It can be influenced by personal experiences, cultural standards, and social comparisons. Media representations often play a strong role in shaping body ideals and expectations.

Body satisfaction is not fixed and can change over time depending on life circumstances and personal development. It is closely related to body image, but focuses more specifically on evaluative feelings rather than perceptions alone. Low body satisfaction is linked to issues such as anxiety, depression, and disordered eating behaviors.

Study author Nicole Paraskeva and her colleagues wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of playing a single session of a purpose-built Roblox video game on U.S. children and adolescents’ state and trait body image and on various other psychological outcomes. To do so, they conducted a study.

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Study participants were 1,059 U.S.-based 9-13-year-olds. 460 of them were girls (and 599 were boys). Children’s average age was 11 years. Study authors recruited them online via a research agency.

Participating children were randomly divided into 3 groups, each going through a different intervention. One group was assigned to play Super U Story, a Roblox game intentionally designed to help improve the players’ body image. The second group played Rainbow Friends 2 Story, a similar Roblox game. The third group was assigned to complete online word search puzzles, finding animal-related words in as many puzzles as they wished for up to 30 minutes. The play time for the two games was also capped at 30 minutes.

Super U Story is a narrative-based adventure game created through an industry-academic partnership between Toya, a gaming studio that creates video games for the online gaming platform Roblox, and the Dove Self-Esteem Project, the social mission for Unilever’s personal care brand, Dove, in consultation with the authors of this study. It is aimed at children aged 9 to 13 years.

The story centers on The Academy, a school for kids with developing superpowers that comes under attack by a group of rogue ex-students intent on spreading negativity. As students progress through the game, they are exposed to psychoeducational content through dialogue with nonplayer characters and pop-up messages on a fictional social media platform. Crucially, to preserve the entertainment value of the game, engagement with most of this educational content was optional. All possible game endings are formulated to reinforce psychological messages (embedded throughout the game) that aim to improve children’s body image.

Participating children completed assessments at 3 time points – at the start of the study (one week before the intervention), at the time of the intervention (immediately before and after playing games or completing word searches), and 1 week after the intervention. Immediately before gameplay and immediately after, participating children answered questions about their current state of body satisfaction (e.g., “How happy do you feel about the way you look, right now?”). They also rated their mood, body functionality, body esteem (using the Body Esteem Scale for Children), body appreciation (the Body Appreciation Scale-2 for Children), internalization of appearance ideals (the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire), and several other characteristics.

Results showed that children who played Super U Story tended to report slightly improved current satisfaction with their bodies after playing the game compared to children who played Rainbow Friends 2 Story, but not compared to children who completed word searches. The three groups did not differ in mood after gameplay, body functionality, internalization of appearance ideals, or social media literacy.

On the other hand, the group that played Rainbow Friends 2 Story showed slightly improved trait body esteem and body appreciation compared to the group that played Super U Story at the 1-week follow-up. The effects did not depend on participants’ age or gender.

“Overall, playing Super U Story did not cause harm; however, evidence is lacking to suggest that it improved body image,” the study authors concluded.

The study sheds light on the effects of playing Super U Story on children’s body image. However, it should be noted that the reported effects were very small and that the time children spent gaming was very short. Effects might have been more substantial after longer game play time or repeated sessions. The researchers also suggested that navigating a brand-new game required a high cognitive load, which may have distracted players from the educational content. Furthermore, passive psychoeducation (just reading pop-up messages) is generally less effective than interactive skill-building.

Additionally, study authors note that game developers were keen to avoid the “chocolate-covered broccoli” phenomenon, i.e., players abandoning the game after recognizing the thinly disguised educational messages for what they are. Because of this, the intervention’s messaging was largely optional and may not have been sufficiently explicit to confer benefits, especially given the very short play time and low overall exposure to the messages.

The paper, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Roblox Video Game (Super U Story) in Improving Body Image Among Children and Adolescents in the United States: Randomized Controlled Trial,” was authored by Nicole Paraskeva, Sharon Haywood, Jason Anquandah, Paul White, Mahira Budhraja, Phillippa C Diedrichs, and Heidi Williamson.