Given these limitations, our analysis provides only a snapshot of a broad and continuously updated body of content across social media.

We chose Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter primarily for their emphasis on photo sharing; previous research has examined other SNS, such as Pinterest and WeHeartIt [ 7 , 24 , 26 ].

The content of dedicated pro-eating disorder groups has also been examined on Facebook [ 8 ], which can also be used to share images.

However, the Facebook interface does not emphasize public photo sharing in the same way as the SNS we studied. Although Facebook is the most widely used SNS [ 36 ], other sites such as Instagram are approaching the same level of use among teens, and were recently ranked as more preferred by teens [ 37 ].

Instagram displayed a warning page when thinspoooo was searched, and displayed the most popular images, rather than the most recent.

For all other hashtag searches, however, we collected the most recent posts. Thus, the Instagram posts we captured may have systematically differed from the other two SNS.

Future research would benefit from the use of external search engines such as Google Advanced Search or Social Searcher to avoid these limitations. Given the evolving nature of social media usage, future research is needed to continue monitoring its content and investigate experimentally its potential effects on body image, body dissatisfaction, eating and exercising patterns, and other symptoms of mental illness.

Fitspiration is a relatively new phenomenon, and future research should monitor changes in fitspiration content, especially given the emphasis on fitness in mainstream culture. If thinspiration and fitspiration are deemed harmful, it would be important to create ways to discourage such posts, similar to the thinspiration warning messages found on Instagram and Tumblr.

Moreover, we do not know the long-term effects of creating, viewing, and using SNS content displayed in fitspiration messages.

It would be useful to conduct experimental research on the effects of creation of, and exposure to, fitspiration posts on the mental health of social media creators and users, in all genders, in the short and long term. The present results suggest that fitspiration and thinspiration display many similarities, especially a focus on appearance, sexual suggestiveness, and restrictive eating.

Thinspiration and fitspiration found on different SNS should continue to be monitored. Future experimental studies should examine the effects of creation, viewing, and usage of thinspiration and fitspiration content on the mental health of their creators, viewers, and users.

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Bar graph representing number of active users of social networking sites. Most popular social networking sites worldwide as of October , ranked by number of active users in millions. Line graph representing preferred social networks of U. teenagers over a six year period. Most popular social networks of teenagers in the United States from fall to fall Download references.

ASA has support from a Chercheur Boursier Junior 1 Award funded by les Fonds de Recherche du Québec- Santé at Concordia University and was previously supported by a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research CIHR at the University of Calgary.

The datasets analysed for the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, University Drive N. W, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. AA and KvR conceived the study idea; AA, SW and KvR designed the study.

SW collected the social media data from the three SNS. KvR conducted the statistical analyses. All authors interpreted the findings. SW and AA drafted the first version of the manuscript. All authors contributed writing, editing, and approval of the final draft submitted.

Correspondence to Kristin M. von Ranson. Data collection and analysis were done while all authors were at the University of Calgary. Not applicable. Our study did not require ethical approval because we analyzed publicly accessible posts on social networking sites.

Not applicable because our manuscript does not contain data from any individual person; data was publicly accessible from social networking sites. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.

Reprints and permissions. Alberga, A. Fitspiration and thinspiration: a comparison across three social networking sites. J Eat Disord 6 , 39 Download citation.

Received : 28 July Accepted : 25 October Published : 26 November Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Skip to main content. Search all BMC articles Search. Download PDF. Research article Open access Published: 26 November Fitspiration and thinspiration: a comparison across three social networking sites Angela S.

Alberga 1 , Samantha J. von Ranson ORCID: orcid. Abstract Background Fitspiration, or images and text promoting health and fitness, and thinspiration, or images and text promoting thinness, have both received criticism for their negative effects on body image and dieting behaviors.

Results Thinspiration images portrayed body parts more frequently than fitspiration Conclusions Although fitspiration posts were less extreme than thinspiration posts on the whole, notable similarities in their content support that fitspiration endorses problematic attitudes towards fitness, body image, and restrictive eating in pursuit of a fit-and-thin body ideal.

Plain English summary We analyzed images from three social media sites Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter to describe and compare the content of fitspiration images and text promoting health and fitness and thinspiration images and text promoting thinness posts. Comparing fitspiration and thinspiration content on three social networking sites Mass media has been identified as an influential cause of body dissatisfaction in women [ 1 , 2 ].

Methods Selection of websites We chose three photo-sharing SNS Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter for their emphasis on photographic content, and because they allowed public access to images through hashtag searches. Table 1 Hashtags searched for each social networking site Full size table.

Table 2 Descriptions of Coded Variables and Inter-Rater Reliability Full size table. Table 3 Variable Characteristics Overall and in Each of Three Social Network Sites Full size table.

Table 4 Comparison of thin vs. fit images across all three social media sites Full size table. Discussion The present results suggest that fitspiration and thinspiration share a focus on appearance, sexually suggestive images, and restrictive eating.

Conclusions The present results suggest that fitspiration and thinspiration display many similarities, especially a focus on appearance, sexual suggestiveness, and restrictive eating. References Stice E, Shaw HE. Article Google Scholar Fardouly J, Vartanian LR.

Google Scholar Fardouly J, Vartanian LR. Article Google Scholar Meier EP, Gray J. Article Google Scholar Holland G, Tiggemann M. Article Google Scholar Rodgers RF, Lowy AS, Halperin DM, Franko DL.

Article Google Scholar Ghaznavi J, Taylor LD. Article Google Scholar Juarascio AS, Shoaib A, Timko CA. Article Google Scholar Ging D, Garvey S. In late January, Cooney posted a video titled " Kingdom Hearts Kairi Cosplay Transformation and Makeup Tutorial " where she showed off a new costume.

But all viewers could focus on was her skeletal appearance and the shocking realization that she had lost even more weight. Underneath the video are over 80, comments. Some are pleading with her to get the help she needs before it's "too late.

Cooney's health has gained the attention of several high-profile YouTubers, including Keemstar, Shane Dawson, and even the platform's biggest single creator, PewDiePie.

The overarching opinion among creators and fans is that being off YouTube right now is the best thing for her because her online presence did not seem to be doing her any good. In the YouTube community, the spotlight can turn on you at any time, and you'll become the latest hot topic for hundreds of videos.

Cooney received attention intermittently throughout her YouTube career, but the biggest flurry of negative responses came after her last upload. Now when you type "Eugenia Cooney" into the YouTube search bar, videos come up of people speculating about Cooney's death, with titles like "Eugenia Cooney is going to die.

Ryan Brown, a YouTuber who uploads to a channel called CrimsonStudios , said he was concerned when this happened because most of the creators making videos about Cooney had no personal experience with eating disorders yet were guessing about her circumstances.

He said he thought the misinformation and unconfirmed theories could be damaging to anyone watching them, not just Cooney. Brown tackled an eating disorder himself for about two years.

He said that at its worst, he weighed about 80 pounds, ate calories a day, and never sat down, but he was in so much denial that he didn't think his obsessions were a sign of anything wrong.

Rather, he thought he was hitting his fitness goals. Read more: A woman with severe anorexia was given weeks to live, but she documented her incredible recovery on Instagram.

Aroosha Nekonam, a personal trainer at Ultimate Performance, also tackled an eating disorder for about seven years. I wasn't dealing with it very well. I was suppressing it. Things were getting on top of me. And I just crumbled," she told INSIDER. I had anxiety. I became very alone. And I think the reason I did that was that I thought that's what I deserved to be like.

I deserved to be alone. At their heart, eating disorders are a coping skill, said Kati Morton, a YouTuber and therapist who wrote the book " Are U Ok? YOU are NOT your disorder. All mental illness, eating disorders especially are a battle with yourself.

A fight against your darker side , the side that whispers to you , that you are unworthy, you are weak, you are undeserving of anything good that comes your way. You have more control than you realise, you just need a bit of support.

Neither should you. Everytime you choose to try just a little bit harder to have a positive day and accept that negative ones are part of the process, you have won a battle. Everytime you smile in the face of your disorder , you have won yet another battle.

A post shared by Aroosha Nekonam arooshanekonam on Feb 25, at am PST Feb 25, at am PST. Eating disorders also tend to also be competitive, Morton said, meaning you are always comparing yourself with others — which helps explain the existence of what have been dubbed "pro-ana communities," forums and websites where people seek out and share images or videos they use as "thinspiration" to lose even more weight.

But rather than vanity, these images fuel negative thoughts so that someone recognizes the pain, Morton said. They don't know the words to express how they're hurting, and if someone else is showing it more so, they'll feel like they need to scream louder.

She added that those who are vulnerable or in recovery need to be careful with the content they view. This includes influencers with millions of followers. Read more: A third of adults can't recognize common eating disorder symptoms — and it could prevent people from getting help.

Nekonam said she found that social media was a double-edged sword during her recovery, because while she eventually found help through YouTube, there is so much out there that can make someone feel worse about themselves.

For instance, there are forums like MyProAna where people with eating disorders often go to find someone to talk to. Then there are blogs like Pro Ana Goddess, which has ground rules like "If you aren't thin you aren't attractive," "Being thin is more important than being healthy," and "You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve yourself, do anything to make yourself look thinner.

While Cooney's videos never promoted anorexia, they fell into a gray area where they could still be used by people who wanted to look like her. In a new video, Brown described how she could be used as a symbol for pro-ana communities as "thinspiration" as the "Eugenia Cooney effect.

In , over 20, people signed a Change. org petition to have Cooney barred from YouTube, claiming she had "a serious medical condition and needs to seek help. is normal," Lynn Cloud, the campaigner behind the petition, wrote on the page, according to Attn. Ever since she has moved out of her mother's house recently, she has been getting skinnier and skinnier.

This clearly isn't a 'high metabolism' or any other type of losing body weight uncontrollably condition. Cooney publicly spoke about eating disorders only once or twice.

She also addressed the petition in a video titled "I'm Sorry" shortly after it came out. I would never want to do that. She added: "I have never told anyone to try to, like, lose weight or to try to, like, change the way they look or to look like me.

But determining what is or isn't potentially harmful to viewers isn't Cooney's, or any other creator's, responsibility — it's YouTube's.

Searching for "thinspiration" or "day in the life of an anorexia" on the platform last month brought up several of her videos, including " A Day In The Life of Eugenia Cooney " and " My Morning Routine.

INSIDER reached out to a YouTube representative after discovering the videos under these search terms in April. The videos no longer appear under these search terms.

Read more: Instagram posts encouraging eating disorders are 'spiraling out of control,' psychiatrists warn. YouTube did not comment on the record about Cooney's content or why her account was not removed.

But according to the platform, judgments on whether a video violates its policies won't be made on someone's appearance alone. The site's community guidelines say that content is removed if it poses a safety risk.

But as YouTube doesn't have access to anyone's medical information, it is not in a position to act on comments and hearsay about whether a person is healthy. YouTube has made an effort in the past to remove content that it deems to glorify or promote eating disorders, like videos including "thinspo" or "pro-ana" messages.

The only obvious "pro-ana" content that remains on the platform are playlists of songs containing images of thin models and celebrities.

But if Cooney hadn't decided to seek help, she might have remained on the platform indefinitely, however damaging her image could be to both herself and her subscribers. And if Cooney could stay on YouTube, people with serious eating disorders could thrive there too.

Cooney still has many fans on pro-ana message boards, according to one who wanted to remain anonymous.

IMDb RATING. YOUR RATING. Biography Drama. Director Tara Miele. Tara Miele. Laura Wiggins Izabella Miko Callie Thorne. See production info at IMDbPro. Top credits Director Tara Miele.

Photos 7. Top cast Edit. Laura Wiggins Hannah. Izabella Miko Teagan …. Callie Thorne Joey. Marcus Giamatti Michael. Emma Dumont Kayden.

Brendan Meyer Leo. Sharon Lawrence Dr. Paula Newsome Ms. Tyler Riggs Brendan. Alexandra Begg Dancer. Rachael Kathryn Bell HipPopK.

Rowdy Brown Wrestler. Colleen Craig Dancer. Luke Gregory Crosby Leo's Team Mate. Linnda Durre Spectator. Krystal Ellsworth Dancer. Doug Haley G-Style. Hailey Hansard Barista. More like this. Storyline Edit. org , an online community connected with the association, tries to reach these young people before they find such content.

Proud2BMe encourages positive body imagery on social media sites like Tumblr. Leaving your house no longer means leaving the online world behind. For adults, these feelings sting. But for young people, the wounds can cut deeper. Proud2BMe aims to rally young people in support of all kinds of healthy bodies.

org petition that challenged the company to expand their size selection. Ultimately, if the bad advice is loud, the good advice — like this message from James — must speak louder:. There are people out there like you, and they will accept you.

But you have to accept yourself first. NEDAwareness Week ends Sunday. If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, NEDA can be reached online and by phone at Support Provided By: Learn more.

Wednesday, Feb Whilst these findings provide great insight, Boepple and Thompson [ 25 ] analysed content featured on websites, rather than social media. Websites lack the interactivity provided by social media, where users can receive, construct, and communicate their ideas, instead of passively receiving content via a website.

It is therefore likely that thinspiration and fitspiration content are presented differently on social media. Additionally, the researchers focussed upon the messages that the content conveyed, and did not specifically analyse and compare the bodies featured within this content.

There is a sparsity of research that has analysed and compared the physical attributes of thinspiration and fitspiration content, and to date there has been no research which has analysed bonespiration content. The present study will compare the bodies featured within thinspiration, bonespiration, and fitspiration to i examine the features of bonespiration content in relation to thinspiration and ii explore how fitspiration shared on social media compares to thinspiration and bonespiration.

This research is important because previous studies have already associated exposure to this content with increased body dissatisfaction and decreased self-esteem, and it is therefore essential that the bodies featured within this content are more fully understood so that effective interventions and preventative measures can be developed.

Images with the relevant hashtags for thinspiration, fitspiration, and bonespiration content were sampled from three social media platforms — Instagram, Twitter, and WeHeartIt.

These platforms were chosen due to their popularity and their use of hashtag systems that facilitate photo-sharing [ 26 ]. Initially, images were captured from different social media profiles across the three platforms; however, whilst the authors appreciate there has been a female bias within research concerning body image, thinspiration and bonespiration appeared to feature more female bodies and so a decision was made to focus on images that contained only female bodies.

After removing the images containing male bodies or no bodies at all, images were analysed. The codes for content were also developed by the first and last author after an initial scoping review of the images which determined what codes were relevant for the analysis.

The bodies in the images were coded for body type and objectification. Body type was coded for to determine which body ideals were featured within the different types of content, codes for body type included: thin body, muscular body, bone protrusions, and presence of muscles.

A thin body was operationalised as a body that was low in body fat, and a muscular body was defined as a toned body, bodies could be both thin and muscular [ 24 ]. Whilst there are many different types of bodies, the authors only coded for thin and muscular bodies as only these body types were observed in the initial scoping review of the images.

In addition, these groups of content are supposed to be aspirational in nature and so it was likely that only these body types would feature in the imagery.

Codes for bone protrusions included protruding ribs, collarbones, spines, and hips. These bone protrusions indicated the presence of an extremely thin body. The presence of muscles included codes for abdominal muscles and other muscles, which also informed the coding decision regarding the overall presence of a muscular body within the image.

The proportion of the body featured within the image was coded as an indicator of objectification of the body, which has been previously used as a code in other content analyses [ 19 , 24 ]. For this code, a decreased representation of the body indicated increased objectification, this is because decreased visibility of the body reduces the body to an object where it is seen in relation to its individual parts, and is not viewed in its entirety.

The top five alternative hashtags for each group were used each week to locate the sample and these hashtags were used across all three social media platforms to maintain consistency.

The sample of images was collected and archived using the data-archiving software Evernote across a period of six months between February and August The sample was then analysed using the codebook. During the analysis, the images were randomised so that the coding process was not impacted by exposure to the imagery, e.

if the coder was exposed to only extremely thin bodies at one time, it was possible that they may view a thin body as larger than it appeared by comparison. The sample consisted of images, images with fitspiration tags, images with thinspiration tags and images with bonespiration tags.

Chi-square tests were used to compare the prevalence of content between the thinspiration, fitspiration, and bonespiration groups. See Table 1 for a complete list of the kappa scores per variable. To understand what bodies are constructed and idealised within fitspiration, thinspiration, and bonespiration content, different body types were coded for.

A body could be coded as both thin and muscular. This suggests that, compared to thinspiration and bonespiration content, fitspiration content may have less of a focus upon the thin ideal, and instead by comparison places a greater emphasis upon muscular physique than thinspiration and bonespiration.

In total, 7. This indicates that the vast proportion of all three groups of content featured thin and muscular bodies. The notion that fitspiration places a greater focus upon muscular bodies than thinspiration and bonespiration content was further supported when abdominal muscles and other muscles were considered.

Overall, fitspiration shows the highest level of muscles in the images, followed by thinspiration content, while bonespiration content had the lowest level of muscles visible in the analysed images. For this analysis, bone protrusions indicated the presence of an extremely thin body.

When the presence of protruding bones was coded for across the groups of content, the previously observed difference between the thinspiration and fitspiration groups disappeared. As demonstrated in Table 1 , the thinspiration and fitspiration group did not significantly differ across codes for protruding ribs, collarbones, and spines.

This observed similarity between the thinspiration and fitspiration groups suggests that there might be a subgroup of fitspiration content, which is alike to thinspiration content, in relation to the idealisation of the extremely thin body; however, the prevalence of the extremely thin body within the fitspiration group did not equal the prevalence of this type of content featured within the bonespiration group.

In previous studies e. It was therefore assumed that a greater prevalence of half bodies reflected an increased objectification of the body.

These findings suggest that fitspiration groups differed significantly from bonespiration and thinspiration content with regards to the objectification of the female body, whereby the thinspiration and bonespiration groups had a greater focus upon the objectification of the female form.

Table 1 presents an overview of the findings. The results from this study indicate that there are consistent differences between fitspiration content, when compared to thinspiration and bonespiration.

Thinspiration and bonespiration content featured more thin objectified bodies; however, fitspiration content was similar to thinspiration content across codes for bone protrusions and, therefore, showed similarities with regards to the idealisation of the extremely thin body.

Similarities were generally observed between thinspiration and bonespiration content, yet bonespiration content contained fewer muscles and more bone protrusions which indicates that bonespiration may be a more extreme form of thinspiration that idealises the extremely thin body type.

The observed similarities between thinspiration and fitspiration content with regards to the presence of bone protrusions suggests that there is a subgroup of fitspiration content which is akin to thinspiration with regards to the idealisation of the extremely thin body type.

This subsample of fitspiration content could be potentially dangerous due to the popularity and greater acceptance of this content. The everyday user could, therefore, be at risk of viewing this potentially harmful content that idealises the extremely thin female body.

Also, almost one third of the fitspiration content featured abdominal muscles, which is not representative of the general population, and therefore suggests that there is an overrepresentation of abdominal musculature within fitspiration content.

This can also be discussed in relation to thin body type idealised by thinspiration as a female would need to have low body weight for her abdominal muscles to be visible. So, whilst fitspiration contains less thin, extremely thin, and objectified bodies, the bodies featured within this content should not be seen as normal and it should still be approached with caution.

The present study adds to the current body of literature by further developing understandings of what body ideals are constructed on social media. This study has provided insight by utilising an observational method in a naturalistic setting, and due to the pictorial nature of the research offers visual insight into what female body types are idealised by users.

This study has replicated the findings of Ghaznavi and Taylor [ 19 ] as a large proportion of thin objectified bodies were identified within the thinspiration group. Although a less pronounced effect was found for bone protrusions within the thinspiration group, this could have been a product of the different platforms utilised for analysis.

low in body fat and muscular. The present study adds to this body of literature by further developing these studies and conducting a direct comparison between the groups of content to highlight that fitspiration content does not as greatly impose thin and objectified bodies upon users, compared to thinspiration and bonespiration content.

The present study is the first to date to include bonespiration as a group for analysis. This adds to the understanding of what body types are constructed within the proED community on social media through the sharing of imagery, in which bonespiration content idealised a more extremely thin body type through the presentation of various bone protrusions.

The bonespiration content also featured more objectified bodies compared to fitspiration content. This study, therefore, marks a baseline for further research to investigate bonespiration content.

Since the thinspiration and bonespiration groups contained such large proportions of thin and objectified female bodies, it raises important policy making questions about whether this content should be removed and blocked on social media, especially since this content is so easy to locate.

This is a particular concern for the bonespiration content, which idealised extremely thin and more unhealthy body types. Despite this, as evidenced by the methodology utilised for this study, blocking this content would be an unrealistic and ineffective strategy for tackling this phenomenon.

This is because social media users are easily able to manipulate the language of hashtags to sustain content and avoid the blocking algorithms. So, simply blocking content like thinspiration and bonespiration will not stop it from existing. Instead of focusing on removing thinspiration and bonespiration, a more sustainable solution would involve developing interventions to minimise the impact of exposure to this content.

By further investigating and developing understandings of thinspiration, fitspiration, and bonespiration, effective interventions and preventative measures can be informed, established, and implemented.

The present study also has implications for clinical practice particularly with regards to the treatment of individuals with eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia.

As this study was a content analysis, it could be argued that it was merely descriptive; however, descriptive studies of content hold a key place within communication research [ 28 ] and the present study marks a necessary step towards understanding the physical attributes of thinspiration, fitspiration, and bonespiration.

Furthermore, as the method incorporated adaptations of language to locate the thinspiration content, it is possible that the thinspiration sample represented an extreme form of thinspiration, whereby users actively used these alternative hashtags to ensure that the content was seen and sustained.

This might explain some of the observed similarities between thinspiration and bonespiration content. To investigate these groups of content further, future research could adopt qualitative methods to gain a deeper insight into meanings that users construct by posting this content on social media.

For example, future research could analyse the text that accompanies the imagery as well as the comments from other users. Future research should also examine content that directly opposes the traditional thin ideal.

Finally, future research could involve other social media platforms. Different platforms may attract different groups of users as shown by the diverse age demographics of Twitter, Instagram, and We Heart It [ 29 ].

A similar study by Ghaznavi and Taylor 19 found that thinspiration content on Pinterest was less objectifying and placed a greater emphasis upon the muscular body, when compared to Twitter. Future research should account for this by segmenting the analysis by social media platform.

In conclusion, fitspiration contained less thin and objectified bodies when compared to thinspiration and bonespiration. Similarities were found between thinspiration and bonespiration content, but bonespiration contained fewer muscles and more bone protrustions which indicates that bonespiration may represent an exaggerated form of thinspiration.

The findings suggest that fitspiration content generally offers a less unhealthy body ideal alternative to thinspiration and bonespiration; however, there was a subgroup of the fitspiration sample which was alike to thinspiration with regards to the idealisation of the extremely thin body type, and as such users should still approach this content with caution.

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