(PS12-71) Filtering Fitness: Tiktok’s Influence on Men’s Body Image

          Research has shown that social media use is associated with body image disturbance. Engaging with visual appearance-focused social media is particularly harmful, especially when these images depict societally-defined appearance ideals. In Western society, these ideals focus largely on body shape and weight. Fitspiration is a distinct type of content that promotes fitness and depicts a muscular/fit body ideal. Fitspiration content tends to depict men and men are more likely to actively engage with this content than women. However, a majority of fitspiration research has focused almost exclusively on women. Research with women has found fitspiration is harmful for both body satisfaction and body appreciation. Body positive content has emerged as a counterforce challenging traditional ideal body types and emphasizes embracing one’s body regardless of shape or flaws. Findings to date about exposure to body positive content are mixed, with some showing a benefit on body satisfaction and body appreciation while others find no effect. Little research has been done on body positive content with men. Data does exist for men showing negative effects for muscular/fit ideal internalization and reactions to appearance-focused content, suggesting that those who embrace an unrealistic muscular/fit standard as a personal goal may be differentially affected by appearance-focused media. However, the association between muscular-ideal internalization and men’s reactions to body positive content and fitspiration content has not been explored. The current study is an experiment of the influence of different types of TikTok content—specifically, fitspiration, body-positive, and appearance-neutral videos—on men’s state body satisfaction and state body appreciation, as well as the role of muscular/fit-ideal internalization. We hypothesized there would be main effects for type of content exposure and internalization of the muscular ideal on state body satisfaction and body appreciation. Additionally, we hypothesized there would be an interaction effect between internalization of appearance-ideals and TikTok content on state body satisfaction and appreciation. This is an ongoing study. A total of 210 male-identifying college age individuals are being recruited through a university participant pool and Prolific. Participants are randomly assigned to view a 4 minute compilation of TikTok videos that depict either fitspiration, body positivity, or appearance-neutral content and complete measures of muscular/fit ideal internalization and state and trait body satisfaction/appreciation. Preliminary results are supporting some hypotheses. Specifically, a 2 (internalization) x3 (condition) ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between internalization of the muscular ideal and TikTok content on both state body appreciation, F(2,51) = 3.76, p = .03, partial h² =  .13. and body satisfaction, F(2,51), = 3.52, p = .04, partial h² =  .12. This study is a first step in understanding how social media content influences men’s perceptions of their bodies and who is at risk for negative outcomes and who is not. The findings have implications for promoting healthier body image and well-being among men and can serve as a basis for future interventions.