4 Social Media Habits for a Healthy Body Image

According to research, social media use for as little as 30 minutes per day can change how you view your body (Fardouly et al., 2017). Given that working-age internet users (ages 16-64) are spending more than 2.5 hours per day on social media as of 2022 (Kemp, 2023), these platforms pose an ever-growing threat to people’s relationships with and perceptions of their own bodies. Not only do the images posted on social media directly impact the eye (and soul) of the viewer, they impact the viewer’s relationships with others as well. Greater body image dissatisfaction is correlated with a more anxious attachment in romantic relationships (Cash et al., 2004), and there are large impacts on sexual relationships too. Poor body image is associated with lower sexual satisfaction (Pujols et al., 2009), difficulty initiating sex (Murray et al., 2006), and greater difficulty perceiving cues necessary for or to sustain arousal, particularly for women (Quinn-Nilas et al., 2016) — just to name a few.

With such clear relationships known between social media use, body image, and the health of one’s romantic and sexual relationships, it is imperative to periodically evaluate your own social media usage and recognize how it’s impacting various aspects of your life (and, potentially, your partner’s). Consider integrating the following social media habits in order to mitigate the harmful impact these platforms can have on your view of yourself and your body. After all, our bodies are our only vehicles for exploring life, pleasure, and relationships; so it is essential we protect and nourish our relationships to them.

c/o giphy social media

1. Set Boundaries With Your Content

Boundaries are meant to protect relationships, not hurt them. Although setting boundaries can be a difficult part of maintaining relationships, including the one to your body, it is also a necessary one. Protecting your body image may mean needing to set some limits not only on the content you see, but also your use of these alluring apps. Such boundaries may include:

• Unfollowing, hiding, and/or blocking accounts that trigger negative feelings about yourself or your body. This includes accounts, groups, or hashtags that are explicitly triggering, including “pro eating disorder” content, like “thinspo”.  Emotional symptoms, like depression and anxiety, may come up around certain content, but also pay close attention to how your body physically responds to posts you see. These somatic and emotional cues can also provide clues on where boundaries may be needed.

• PRO TIP: If you come across harmful content that utilizes hashtags on Instagram, you can prevent it from appearing in your Explore by sending feedback of the specific hashtag. Click the concerning hashtag on the caption of the post, and on the page and you'll see three dots at the upper right corner of the page. Click on it and “give feedback on this Hashtag” will appear.

• Set time limits on apps. If you find yourself frequently “doomscrolling”, hyperfixating, or spending too much time on certain posts or images you see on social media, remember that you have the power to set time limits on specific apps in your phone’s settings in order to keep yourself accountable. There are also various apps that offer “stricter” time limits that are more difficult to disable from the settings on your phone, such as Opal*.

 *(not affiliated with this app)

• Hide your like count. Research suggests that placing a high value on other users’ feedback on Instagram, such as likes or followers, is associated with low self-esteem and perceived social status (AKA feeling included in a group, assumptions about being perceived positively or negatively, etc.) (Diefenbach & Anders, 2021).  This action can hopefully allow you to decenter receiving likes as the “measure of success” of posting a photo of yourself, and refocus towards authentically sharing with others.

• PRO TIP: 

• You can hide the number of likes you see on others’ Instagram posts: Settings & Privacy > Like count > Hide like count

• Unfortunately, there’s no setting that automatically hides all of your Instagram likes from others—you’ll have to do it for each individual post: Three dots menu icon on top right above post > Hide like count.

Protect your privacy and peace by making your profile private and disabling the receiving of DM’s from people who don’t follow you.

c/o giphy boundaries

2. Evaluate Your Own Social Media Interactions

How do you communicate with others on social media? How do you comment on or respond to others’ posts? Are you (perhaps subconsciously) contributing to the maintenance of the status quo and objectification of bodies? This may look like commenting solely on a person’s appearance or body in a photo or video while ignoring the content or meaning of the post, responding to stories with only fire or heart-eye emojis, or only interacting with content that perpetuates fatphobia and “pretty privilege”. When we objectify others, we are inherently objectifying ourselves, too. What else can you see in this post? Can you see happiness, accomplishment, shared values, or the pursuit of passions behind the body or face in the image that you can comment on instead? Consider the impact that this practice can have not only on your own perception of what you hope to share with others on social media, but also your friends’, families’, and followers’ as they notice your more meaningful interactions.

3. Embrace #nofilter

This healthy social media habit might feel like the most challenging or uncomfortable one to begin practicing, but it may be the most important one on this list: don’t edit or photoshop images you post online. I recognize this can be easier said than done, especially if you’ve been editing photos of yourself for as long as you can remember or have had access to social media. However, getting in this habit of consistently posting Facetune-free images is a significant step in being and living out the change you want to see in the online world. Two major steps to healing body image include tolerance, then acceptance. You may be in this uncomfortable “tolerance” stage for a while as you get used to posting non-manipulated images of yourself, and that’s okay and expected. Use self-soothing skills when needed in order to build tolerance and cognitive flexibility around this change. But, be careful not to push away the discomfort right away; to increase the tolerance, one needs to live fully in the body when they are experiencing and embodying emotions. Be present with them, notice how different emotions shift the way you hold your body or the way you move through the world, and bravely ride them out. 

Not only does this healthy habit improve your own relationship to your body, it also aims to encourage the change you want to see in others on social media.  According to social learning theory, humans learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others. Pay close attention to how many people on your feed may already be embracing this edit-free practice. If it’s more common than you originally expected, then maybe you can find comfort in not being alone when posting your first “raw” photo; or, if you’re not seeing too many, then you have a meaningful opportunity to be a catalyst of change in your communities online.

Keep in mind that filters have gotten VERY realistic recently and that these various editing tools can easily be applied to video content as well. Even if you can’t find a tiny glitch in the background of an image that proves it’s been manipulated, you can probably make a fair assumption about what is real and what isn’t depending on the creator and their posting habits. Asking yourself some of the questions in the fourth point below can also help you in making these distinctions. 

4. Ask Yourself, What the Heck Am I Even Looking At?

It’s time to pull out your critical thinking cap and question the images you’re looking at, especially if you notice a negative physical or emotional response to the post regarding your own body. Always remember that what you are looking at may not actually be reflective of real life. A good starting point is to get curious about who could be profiting off of the image; is someone trying to sell you something? Shame and fear are effective (and harmful) means to control and influence others; if something you see online is making you feel shameful towards yourself, there is likely an agenda at play that does not exist to serve you, but rather, most likely a capitalistic and white supremacist institution or construct. 

Finally, keep calm and keep it in perspective. People post the pictures that best portray the image they want others to see of themselves. Our brains are fantastic at coming up with narratives that often fuel our negative thoughts, comparisons, and dissatisfactions that increase our own suffering. So slow down the scrolling, take some deep breaths, and give yourself a gentle and loving “reality check” when you’re getting caught up in believing the tricky lies being told from your self-comparison spiral. 

Observe the difference in how you feel as a result of implementing some of these healthy social media habits. Notice how these changes impact how you approach the world and interact with others. As you navigate social media and the real world, remember that a healthy body image is not believing that you look good, it is knowing that you and your body ARE good regardless of how you look. So, consider shifting your daily posts or routines to reflect the many other amazing qualities you have to show off, in addition to or other than your looks.

~ Allison Colaianni, ALMFT

References:

Cash, T. F., Theriault, J., & Annis, N. M. (2004). Body image in an interpersonal context: Adult attachment, fear of intimacy, and social anxiety. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(1), 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.23.1.89.26987

Diefenbach, S., & Anders, L. (2021, September 13). The psychology of likes: Relevance of feedback on Instagram and relationship to self-esteem and social status. Psychology of Popular Media 11(2), 196-207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000360

Fardouly, J., Willburger, B. K., & Vartanian, L. R. (2018). Instagram use and young women’s body image concerns and self-objectification: Testing mediational pathways. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1380-1395. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817694499

Kemp, S. (2023, January 26). Digital 2023 deep dive: How much time do we spend on social media? DataReportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-deep-dive-time-spent-on-social-media

Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Collins, N. L. (2006). Optimizing assurance: the risk regulation system in relationships. Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 641–666. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.641

Pujols, Y., Seal, B. N., & Meston, C. M. (2010). The association between sexual satisfaction and body image in women. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7(2 Pt 2), 905–916. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01604.x

Quinn-Nilas, C., Benson, L., Milhausen, R. R., Buchholz, A. C., & Goncalves, M. (2016). The Relationship Between Body Image and Domains of Sexual Functioning Among Heterosexual, Emerging Adult Women. Sexual Medicine, 4(3), e182–e189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2016.02.004