Check Your Likes but Move Your Body! How the Use of Social Media Is Influencing Pre-Teens Body and the Role of Active Lifestyles

Abstract

The use of social media has been increasing among pre-teens, affecting body satisfaction and leading to the development of a dualism between real and virtual identities. It is also associated with low physical activity levels. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the influence of dualism and physical activity levels on body satisfaction in male and female pre-teens. A sample of 2378 Italian pre-teens (Mage = 12.02 years, SD = 0.82) was recruited. Two anonymous and self-administered questionnaires were used to investigate social media use, the representation of the bodies through the social media, body image, and physical activity levels. Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables; Pearson’s Chi square and Cramer’s V were calculated to assess gender differences. Linear mixed models were used to explore the association between body satisfaction (dependent variable) and physical activity levels and the dualism (independent variables). It emerged that physical activity positively influences body satisfaction for both males and females; dualism negatively influences body satisfaction only for females. Therefore, it can be assumed that the engagement of pre-teens in offline activities counteracts the undesirable consequences of the beauty ideal models proposed by image-centred social media platforms.

Scrolls and self-perception, navigating the link between social networks and body dissatisfaction in preadolescents and adolescents: a systematic review

“…The MMMT (Hong et al, 2018) assessed six studies as moderate quality (Ferguson et al, 2014;Meier and Gray, 2014;Tiggemann and Slater, 2014;Brajdić Vuković et al, 2018;Mesce et al, 2022;Sagrera et al, 2022) and ten studies as strong quality (De Vries et al, 2014, 2016Ho et al, 2016;Kaewpradub et al, 2017;Chang et al, 2019;Boursier et al, 2020;Fardouly et al, 2020;Çimke and Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023;Digennaro and Iannaccone, 2023;Martinac Dorčić et al, 2023). Overall, the selected studies set out their research aims and methodologies clearly.…”

“…Sample sizes ranged between 5,070 (Sagrera et al, 2022) and 103 (Meier and Gray, 2014). The study samples primarily originated from Europe (n = 7) (De Vries et al, 2014, 2016Brajdić Vuković et al, 2018;Boursier et al, 2020;Mesce et al, 2022;Digennaro and Iannaccone, 2023;Martinac Dorčić et al, 2023) while a minority were sourced from North America (n = 3) (Ferguson et al, 2014;Meier and Gray, 2014;Sagrera et al, 2022), China (n = 2) (Ho et al, 2016;Chang et al, 2019), Australia (n = 2) (Tiggemann and Slater, 2014;Fardouly et al, 2020), Thailand (n = 1) (Kaewpradub et al, 2017), and Turkey (n = 1) (Çimke and Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023).…”

“…Most of the studies incorporated males and females in the research (n = 11) (De Vries et al, 2014, 2016Ho et al, 2016;Kaewpradub et al, 2017;Boursier et al, 2020;Fardouly et al, 2020;Mesce et al, 2022;Sagrera et al, 2022;Çimke and Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023;Digennaro and Iannaccone, 2023;Martinac Dorčić et al, 2023), although studies were conducted exclusively with female participants (n = 5) (Ferguson et al, "Body image" OR "body perception" OR "body pressure" OR "body ideals" OR "body dissatisfaction" OR "body size perception" OR "body representation" OR "body focused" OR "body concern" OR "body distortion" OR "body shame" OR "body esteem" AND "social network" OR "social media" OR "social network use" OR "social media use" OR "feed" OR "post" OR "share" OR "tag" OR "social network account" OR "chat" OR "follower" OR "social platform" AND "pre-adolescents" OR "preadolescents" OR "preteens" OR "pre-teens" OR "young" OR "adolescents" OR "teenagers".…”

“…Second, studies have focused on how social comparison processes on social networking sites (SNSs) impact adolescents' BID and their drive to achieve ideal body types, including thinness and muscularity (Meier and Gray, 2014;Martinac Dorčić et al, 2023). The third category of studies investigated the relationship between self-objectification, particularly focusing on appearance control beliefs and body image control in photos, and problematic use of social networking sites (SNSs) among preadolescents/adolescents (Chang et al, 2019;Çimke and Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023;Digennaro and Iannaccone, 2023). The fourth category of studies explored the role of peers and celebrities in the body objectification process associated with online social networking use among preadolescents/adolescents (De Vries et al, 2014, 2016Ferguson et al, 2014;Ho et al, 2016).…”

“…Most studies in this review utilized cross-sectional research designs, primarily relying on self-report survey methods (n = 13) (Meier and Gray, 2014;Tiggemann and Slater, 2014;Ho et al, 2016;Kaewpradub et al, 2017;Brajdić Vuković et al, 2018;Chang et al, 2019;Boursier et al, 2020;Fardouly et al, 2020;Mesce et al, 2022;Sagrera et al, 2022;Çimke and Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023;Digennaro and Iannaccone, 2023;Martinac Dorčić et al, 2023). A minority of the , 2016Ferguson et al, 2014).…”