The Impact of Thin-Ideal Internalization, Appearance Comparison, Social Media Use on Body Image and Eating Disorders: A Literature Review

ABSTRACT

This literature review aims to examine the negative and positive aspects of social media use, on body image, eating disorders (ED), and explore the possible mechanisms driving these relationships. The method of this review focuses on the qualitative interpretation and synthesis of the knowledge state of the knowledge in the literature selected for a defined topic. The key findings of this review are: (a) Social Media Use and Body Image: Thin-Ideal Internalization and Appearance Comparison (b) Impact of Social Media Use on eating behaviors (EB) and ED (c) Theoretical Perspectives on Body Image and ED (d) Relevance of Social Media Use, Body Image, and ED (e) The role of social media from a sustainable and positive perspective. The results identified the light and dark sides of social media use for body image and ED. The negative and positive effects of social media use on body image and ED are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• body image
• eating disorders
• appearance comparison
• internalization

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Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.