Body Image and Social Media in College Students

This study served to relate and connect appearance-related social media preoccupation (SMARP) with body shame, body surveillance, and social physique anxiety (SPA). Using data from the 1,071 participants, a correlational analysis and a hierarchal regression were used. Significant relationships were found between all variables, supporting our first and second hypotheses. Our results confirmed the relationship between social physique anxiety and social media appearance-related preoccupation, adding evidence to a mixed debate about relationships between SPA and social media use. We saw that SPA moderated the relationship between body shame and SMARP. We can conclude that appearance anxieties and appearance-based social media use are related. Media literacy should be expanded as well as literacy on appearance anxieties