Effect of Fitspiration on State Self-Esteem Among Young Adults

ABSTRACTMedia trends are widely prevalent on social media sites, and have demonstrated the ability to influence people’s perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. The present study examined the fitness and health-focused media trend of “fitspiration” and its effects on the state self-esteem of young adult males and females. The study is one of the first to examine fitspiration in an Indian context and amongst an Asian population and contributes to the growing literature concerning media trends, body image, and self-esteem in women and men. The sample consisted of 61 undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18–25 years, recruited through convenience sampling. A pretest posttest control group design was used and data was collected using a personal demographic sheet and state self-esteem scale (SSES). Pretest group equivalence was statistically ascertained and then pre-post comparison analysis was done for male and female participants separately. Contrary to expectations, findings revealed that fitspiration caused a significant increase in the social state self-esteem of females. The findings have been discussed based on the Self-Discrepancy Theory. The study contributes to the limited literature on media trends in an Asian setting and has valuable implications for the fields of social, health, and sports psychology, as well as advertising.KEYWORDS: Fitspirationmedia trendstate self-esteembody imageyoung adults AcknowledgmentsWe would like to extend our gratitude to all the participants who took part in the study and to Ms. Kashish Srivastava, UGLE3 student, Department of Psychological Sciences, FLAME University, Pune, for her assistance in editing the paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, A.K, upon reasonable request.Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declare that there is no conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of the article.Ethical clearanceThis study has been approved by the Department of Psychological Sciences dissertation research committee of FLAME University, where this work was completed.Additional informationFundingThe authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.