“Fitspiration” effects: Assessing the effects of social media “fitspiration” images on female athletes

Numerous scholars have noted that female athletes endure constant pressure and comparisons from their sporting field, the media, and society. A rise in social media influencers present another type of comparison that female athletes see daily. A new trend on Instagram called “fitspiration” that is used by influencers attempts to motivate all women to exercise and workout by posting images in sexualized workout attire and poses. Drawing from the social comparison theory and the self-objectification theory, this study investigated how sample examples of social media fitspiration images affect female athletes’ body image perceptions in comparison to sample examples of elite athletes' images from Instagram as well as their own social media accounts. This study used three different types of images sets of “fitspiration” images and elite athlete images to explore collegiate-level female athlete’s attitudes of self-esteem, body satisfaction, and self-objectification in addition to their beliefs on how attractive and desirable the images were. The results show that after viewing the fitspiration images, participants reported lower self-esteem and body satisfaction than when viewing the elite athletes' images. The female athletes also reported that the fitspiration models appeared healthier than the elite athletes as well as a higher self-reporting tendency.