Surprisingly few “#bodypositivity” videos on TikTok actually contain messaging related to body positivity, study finds

TikTok, the popular short-form video platform, is home to a diverse range of content, from dance trends to life hacks. But what about body positivity videos on TikTok? A recent study delved into this realm of social media to uncover the specific type of content featured in videos tagged with “#bodypositivity.” Surprisingly, while a portion of these videos promoted body positivity, the majority lacked messaging consistent with the core values of the body positivity movement.

The study was published in the scientific journal Body Image.

In an era where social media significantly influences our self-esteem and body image, the study aimed to shed light on the world of body positivity videos on TikTok. The body positivity movement emerged as a response to the unrealistic beauty standards perpetuated by the media. It encourages self-acceptance and promotes the idea that all bodies are beautiful, regardless of size or shape.

TikTok, known for its engaging and often upbeat content, seems like an ideal platform for spreading body positivity messages. But are these videos really conveying the core values of the movement, or is there a discrepancy between intention and execution? The researchers sought to answer this question by meticulously analyzing a sample of TikTok body positivity videos.

“My lab conducted a study a few years ago to assess whether the messages in body positivity Instagram posts embodied the main tenets of the body positivity movement and found that while many posts did contain inclusion of diverse body sizes and positive messaging, they also contained contradictory messages such as promotion of weight loss or praise of extreme thinness. Given the popularity of TikTok, particularly with a younger audience, we sought to examine the content of body positivity TikTok videos,” explained study author Jennifer Harriger, a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University.

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The researchers collected and analyzed 342 unique TikTok videos that featured the hashtag #bodypositivity. They examined various aspects of these videos, including demographics, appearance, themes, and messaging.

Harriger and her colleagues found that the majority of TikTok body positivity videos featured a single person (98.8%). Most of these individuals identified as women (95.3%), while 4.1% were men. The age range varied, but the majority appeared to be between 15 and 20 years old (71.1%). Remarkably, the study revealed that a considerable percentage of these videos depicted individuals who embodied Western culturally based beauty ideals either to some extent (44.2%) or to a great extent (48.5%).

When it came to body types, approximately half of the videos depicted individuals of “normal” weight (49.5%), while 26.9% included “overweight” individuals, and 5.2% featured individuals who were rated as “obese.”

Positive body image themes were somewhat rare in the analyzed TikTok videos. A substantial portion (67.8%) did not include any positive body image themes at all. Among those that did, the most common theme was “body acceptance and love” (16.7%). Other themes included “inner positivity” (9.4%), “fat acceptance” (7.0%), “protective filtering of information” (4.1%), “conceptualizing beauty broadly” (2.9%), “adaptive investment in body care” (2.0%), and “body appreciation” (1.5%).

Interestingly, negative appearance-focused themes were also rare in these videos. “Weight/fat stigmatizing” themes appeared in only 1.2% of the videos, and all other appearance-focused themes (“body/weight/food shaming,” “clothing/beauty appearance,” “thin praise,” “weight loss/diet/exercise”) were present in less than 1% of the videos.

Objectification, a concerning aspect of many social media platforms, was relatively infrequent on TikTok. Only 6.4% of the videos contained elements of objectification.

One noteworthy finding was that contradictory messaging was not present in the videos. This means that videos containing positive body image themes did not simultaneously include elements of negative appearance-focused content. In other words, if a video promoted body positivity, it did not undermine this message with harmful content.

“The majority of the body positivity videos on TikTok often portrayed young, White women with unrealistic beauty ideals, such as clear skin, white teeth, and thin bodies,” Harriger told PsyPost. “The body positive videos on TikTok rarely displayed features aligned with positive body image (only about a third of the videos in the sample included body positivity messaging).”

“Anecdotally, the videos did contain positive messaging (e.g., be yourself) that was not related to the body positivity movement, but could potentially be protective to viewers. The videos in the sample rarely included explicit negative appearance-focused messaging or contradictory messaging, which is promising. Overall, the videos did not necessarily promote tenets of the body positivity movement, but also did not contain problematic messaging.”

While these findings offer valuable insights into the world of TikTok body positivity videos, the study — like all research — includes some limitations. The study focused on a sample of 342 videos, which, while substantial, may not represent the entirety of TikTok’s body positivity content. Moreover, TikTok’s algorithms and content recommendation systems were not explored in this study, which could play a crucial role in the content users are exposed to.

Additionally, future research could delve deeper into how viewers respond to TikTok videos with body positivity messages compared to those with more general positive messaging. Exploring the functionality of the body in dynamic video content and its impact on self-objectification could be another avenue for further investigation.

“It would be important to assess the effects of exposure to body positivity videos on viewer’s body image and self-esteem, as the current study did not examine this,” Harriger said. “We also utilized a deductive strategy, where we identified themes of interest prior to the study. Future work could use an inductive approach where themes are identified during the coding process.”

The study, “The body positivity movement is not all that positive on TikTok: A content analysis of body positive TikTok videos“, was authored by Jennifer A. Harriger, Madeline R. Wick, Christina M. Sherline, and Abbey L. Kunz.