Trial reportTranslational behavioral medicine2021
Experimental effects of fitspiration messaging on body satisfaction, exercise motivation, and exercise behavior among college women and men.
Trial report in Translational behavioral medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- The algorithm of dissatisfaction: social media and body image crisis among university students.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Causes and intervention strategies for appearance anxiety: a critical review of recent advances.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- The impact of fitness app need support on women's exercise adherence behavior: a serial mediation effect of self-efficacy and perceived health control.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Self-compassion as a protective factor against adverse consequences of social media use: A scoping review.PloS one · 2025Article
- A scoping literature review of the associations between highly visual social media use and eating disorders and disordered eating: a changing landscape.Journal of eating disorders · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The popular #fitspiration trend on Instagram and other social media platforms is intended to inspire healthy living (particularly exercise engagement), though several studies have documented the negative effects of fitspiration-style posts on women's body satisfaction and mood. Pairing fitspiration images with text focused on self-compassion shows promise for buffering this effect and warrants additional attention. In particular, little is known about the benefit of self-compassion (vs. traditional) messaging for exercise motivation or engagement, and few studies have examined gender differences in these effects. The present study used an experimental design to test the differential effects of fitspiration posts paired with traditional messaging, self-compassion messaging, or no text (image-only control). College students (N = 655; 59% women, 64% Caucasian) were randomized to view gender-congruent stimuli on Instagram; they then completed self-report measures of body satisfaction and exercise motivation, and their attendance at campus fitness centers was tracked over the following 7 days (to capture exercise engagement). Neither the expected benefits of self-compassion (vs. traditional) messages for body satisfaction and exercise motivation nor the expected benefit of traditional (vs. self-compassion) messages for exercise engagement were observed. However, results of exploratory analyses suggest that, as predicted, self-compassion messaging may be optimal for promoting positive outcomes among women, whereas images without associated text may be optimal for promoting positive outcomes among men (Cohen's ds = 0.14-0.41). Findings from this study provide insight into potential methods for optimizing the fitspiration trend to promote healthy self-perceptions and exercise engagement during college.
Indexed as
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.