“Fitspiration” on Social Media: A Content Analysis of Gendered Images

Abstract

Background:
"Fitspiration" (also known as "fitspo") aims to inspire individuals to exercise and be healthy, but emerging research indicates exposure can negatively impact female body image. Fitspiration is frequently accessed on social media; however, it is currently unclear the degree to which messages about body image and exercise differ by gender of the subject.

Objective:
The aim of our study was to conduct a content analysis to identify the characteristics of fitspiration content posted across social media and whether this differs according to subject gender.

Methods:
Content tagged with #fitspo across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr was extracted over a composite 30-minute period. All posts were analyzed by 2 independent coders according to a codebook.

Results:
Of the 415/476 (87.2%) relevant posts extracted, most posts were on Instagram (360/415, 86.8%). Most posts (308/415, 74.2%) related thematically to exercise, and 81/415 (19.6%) related thematically to food. In total, 151 (36.4%) posts depicted only female subjects and 114/415 (27.5%) depicted only male subjects. Female subjects were typically thin but toned; male subjects were often muscular or hypermuscular. Within the images, female subjects were significantly more likely to be aged under 25 years (P<.001) than the male subjects, to have their full body visible (P=.001), and to have their buttocks emphasized (P<.001). Male subjects were more likely to have their face visible in the post (P=.005) than the female subjects. Female subjects were more likely to be sexualized than the male subjects (P=.002).

Conclusions:
Female #fitspo subjects typically adhered to the thin or athletic ideal, and male subjects typically adhered to the muscular ideal. Future research and interventional efforts should consider the potential objectifying messages in fitspiration, as it relates to both female and male body image.

Full text

Original Paper
“Fitspiration” on Social Media: A Content Analysis of Gendered
Images
Elise Rose Carrotte1, BPsych (Hons); Ivanka Prichard2, BBSc (Hons in Psychology), PhD; Megan Su Cheng Lim1,3,4,
BBiomedSc(Hons), PhD
1Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia
2School of Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
3School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
4Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Corresponding Author:
Elise Rose Carrotte, BPsych (Hons)
Burnet Institute
85 Commercial Road
Commercial Road
Melbourne, 3004
Australia
Phone: 61 385062365
Fax: 61 3 9282 2100
Email: elise.carrotte@burnet.edu.au
Abstract
Background: “Fitspiration” (also known as “fitspo”) aims to inspire individuals to exercise and be healthy, but emerging
research indicates exposure can negatively impact female body image. Fitspiration is frequently accessed on social media; however,
it is currently unclear the degree to which messages about body image and exercise differ by gender of the subject.
Objective: The aim of our study was to conduct a content analysis to identify the characteristics of fitspiration content posted
across social media and whether this differs according to subject gender.
Methods: Content tagged with #fitspo across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr was extracted over a composite
30-minute period. All posts were analyzed by 2 independent coders according to a codebook.
Results: Of the 415/476 (87.2%) relevant posts extracted, most posts were on Instagram (360/415, 86.8%). Most posts (308/415,
74.2%) related thematically to exercise, and 81/415 (19.6%) related thematically to food. In total, 151 (36.4%) posts depicted
only female subjects and 114/415 (27.5%) depicted only male subjects. Female subjects were typically thin but toned; male
subjects were often muscular or hypermuscular. Within the images, female subjects were significantly more likely to be aged
under 25 years (P<.001) than the male subjects, to have their full body visible (P=.001), and to have their buttocks emphasized
(P<.001). Male subjects were more likely to have their face visible in the post (P=.005) than the female subjects. Female subjects
were more likely to be sexualized than the male subjects (P=.002).
Conclusions: Female #fitspo subjects typically adhered to the thin or athletic ideal, and male subjects typically adhered to the
muscular ideal. Future research and interventional efforts should consider the potential objectifying messages in fitspiration, as
it relates to both female and male body image.
(J Med Internet Res 2017;19(3):e95) doi: 10.2196/jmir.6368
KEYWORDS
social media; physical fitness; women’s health; men’s health; body image
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Introduction
Overview of Fitspiration
An estimated 79% of young people use some form of social
media daily [1]. Research suggests that young people are
increasingly turning to social media for information about health
and health behavior norms [2]. In recent years, a new fitness
trend has emerged, providing Web-based and social
media–based content designed to inspire individuals to exercise
and be healthy. “Fitspiration,” commonly shortened to “fitspo,”
is the broad term used to describe this “fitness inspiration” [3].
Fitspiration on social media allows users to view exercise-related
images and videos and communicate with like-minded
individuals. It often contains exercise tips, recipes, and
photographs of food or people (including professional
photographs, self-portraits (“selfies”) and “before and after”
images to highlight changes in weight or muscle). It is
conceptually different from “thinspiration” (#thinspo), a form
of media that deliberately promotes weight loss and thinness,
and glorifies aspects of disordered eating behavior [4]. Social
media users may follow dedicated fitspiration pages and profiles
so that related content appears in their newsfeeds.
Fitspiration-related social media posts are often tagged using
hashtags—short words or phrases preceded by the hash or
number symbol (#)—such as “#fitspo,” allowing social media
users to easily search for posts related to this topic. A recent
cross-sectional survey estimated that 31% of young Australians
like or follow fitspiration on social media, with young women
more than twice as likely as young men to like these pages [5].
Impact of Fitspiration
Fitspiration is perceived to “model” ideas about health and
fitness, shaping health beliefs and encouraging a “moral
obligation” to achieve a particular body type among young
women [6]. Experimental research has demonstrated negative
effects from acute exposure to fitspiration among women,
including increased negative mood and body dissatisfaction [7].
Acute exposure to fitspiration-style athletic ideal images (which
depict a thin yet toned or muscular female body [8]) and
exposure to “thinspiration”-style thin ideal images [9] predict
body dissatisfaction and compulsive exercising among women
at similar rates [10-12].
Meanwhile, contemporary men also commonly experience body
dissatisfaction, particularly muscle dissatisfaction [13]. Exposure
to traditional media (eg, print or magazine) muscular ideal
images is associated with increased drive for muscularity and
depression [14] and lowered muscle satisfaction among men
[15]. Furthermore, exposure to images of male models actively
engaging in sport has been shown to decrease men’s satisfaction
with their fitness levels and overall appearance [16]. However,
the impact of male fitspiration images on men remains unknown.
Objectification Theory
Despite the focus on fitness, fitspiration images are argued to
focus heavily on the appearance of the body and emphasize
looks rather than body functionality [7]. According to
objectification theory [17], this treatment of the body as an
object (“objectification”) is common in Western society, occurs
in many forms, and disproportionately affects women. A
common form of objectification is sexual objectification, where
the body is treated and visually inspected as a collection of
sexually appealing body parts [17]. Past research has shown
that over 50% of the time, traditional media presents the female
form as a “sex object,” using a woman’s sexuality to sell a
product via facial expression, the amount of skin shown, and
sexually suggestive camera angles. This figure rises to
approximately 76% when examining images of women in men’s
magazines [18]. Furthermore, objectification may also be evident
through facial prominence in images. Research suggests that
images of men tend to focus on the head and face, whereas for
women, the emphasis is on the whole body; this is known as
“face-ism” [19]. A comprehensive analysis of objectification
in fitspiration images would identify gender differences in these
areas and provide avenues for future research.
Fitspiration Content Analyses
Content analyses have important implications for policy, as they
can identify which types of content are potentially beneficial
or harmful, and the degree to which fitspiration may be targeting
different demographics. Two recent studies analyzed fitspiration
websites; finding that these websites contain similar content to
thinspiration websites, mostly depict women (>90% of images),
and include objectified and sexualized women who are
objectively thin [3,20]. However, it is unclear whether any social
media–based fitspiration was included in these website analyses.
In addition, gendered comparisons were absent from these
studies [3,20], presumably as the majority of website-based
content depicted women. Due to the popularity of fitspiration
on social media, and its potential to facilitate peer-based body
comparisons and reinforce social norms around health and
fitness [5], it is also important to also study social media–based
fitspiration. Recently, Tiggemann and Zaccardo [21] examined
fitspiration on the image-based social media platform Instagram,
finding that although most of these images (67%) depicted
women, around 29% of images depicted men. Using categorical
measurements, they found that most female subjects were thin
and visibly muscular, whereas most male subjects were of
medium build with a high level of muscularity. A quarter of
subjects were engaged in some exercise activity and the majority
of both men and women were objectified.
Although these previous content analyses have provided a broad
overview of the common appearance-based messages of
fitspiration, they do not provide any inferential statistics related
to potential differences in male and female images. Tiggemann
and Zaccardo [21] provided limited description of body type,
activity engagement, and objectification between male and
female subjects; however, this was only on one media platform
(Instagram). It is currently unclear whether social media
fitspiration content is most commonly posted to Instagram or
to another social media platform, and whether these patterns
exist across different social media platforms such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Tumblr. Instagram and Tumblr are highly visual
platforms compared with Twitter and Facebook, which have
more of a mix of text- and image-based content. Furthermore,
Instagram and Tumblr have more female users than male users
[22].
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Although women are more likely than men to access social
media–based fitspiration [5], since over a quarter of Instagram
content appears to be aimed at men [21], it is also important to
examine messages aimed at men. Prior studies of promuscularity
websites indicate that these websites contain messages about
rigid exercise and dietary practices and aspirations toward an
“ideal” muscular body [23]. Such messages may contribute
toward rates of body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and
compulsive exercise behaviors in men. Studying these gendered
differences in social media fitspiration content by using
inferential statistics to clearly identify significant differences,
could help identify patterns of fitspiration messages, inform
future experimental research, and help to develop and refine
interventions aimed at men and women. Furthermore, no prior
content analyses have explored the age of fitspiration subjects.
It is important to determine whether fitspiration is targeting
particular age groups. Of note, body image concerns tend to
commence earlier in girls than boys [24], and younger people
disproportionately access fitspiration [4].
This Study
This study aimed to describe and identify the characteristics of
fitspiration content posted across social media (ie, Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr) via a public hashtag with
regards to body image messages, food or dieting messages, and
exercise messages by gender of subjects (see Multimedia
Appendix 1 for variable description). In accordance with
objectification theory and media trends, it was hypothesized
that (1) posts would more frequently appear on Instagram and
Tumblr than Twitter and Facebook; (2) more posts would depict
images of women than images of men; (3) women would be
thinner whereas men would be more muscular; (4) posts
depicting women would be more likely to demonstrate
objectification through sexualized imagery, emphasis placed
on the look of the full body, emphasis placed on specific body
parts (stomach or buttocks), and fewer depictions of the face,
and (5) women would appear younger than men.
Methods
Selection of Content
This content analysis involved analyzing recent posts with the
“#fitspo” hashtag across 4 social media platforms: Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. At 3 randomly generated
timeslots, #fitspo was searched across Instagram, Tumblr,
Facebook, and Twitter and all posts were extracted using
screenshot methods over the next 10 minutes. No best practice
tools are available for systematically searching social media,
and various websites’ default search algorithms do not allow
systematic searching. At the time of data collection, Facebook
and Pinterest did not allow accurate searching of “most recent”
tagged posts, instead showing a combination of recent and
“popular” posts when searching a tag. Instagram allows
searching of recent posts for public, but not private profiles, but
does not allow searching of popular posts. To address these
issues, the website tagboard.com was used, which tracks recent,
public posts with hashtags across Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter. Tumblr allows searching of both recent and popular
posts; all profiles are public, so this platform was searched
directly. The authors were unable to search for recent posts on
Pinterest, another platform of interest, so this platform was not
included in the analysis.
Coding Strategy
Given the emergent nature of research into this field, posts were
analyzed with a codebook developed specifically for this project
by the authors (see Figure 1for example images and Multimedia
Appendix 1 for codebook). This codebook was expanded from
Boepple and Thompson’s [3], and Tiggemann and Zaccardo’s
[21] analyses. Variables were also informed by objectification
theory [17]. Twenty-eight variables were chosen by the authors.
These included variables related to the relevance and structure
of the post (eg, social media platform type, presence of a
caption, presence of a photo or video), the theme of the post
(exercise or food), number of people present and their apparent
gender and age (in categories), whether the post depicted the
subject’s face or body, whether the post emphasized the
subject’s stomach or buttocks, and whether the post encouraged
healthy eating or included a person actively exercising. For
variables relating to the subject of the post, if multiple people
of the same gender were present, coders were instructed to code
variables related to the main subject of the post. This was
determined by the structure of the post highlighting 1 subject
(eg, 1 subject in the foreground). If this was unclear, the coder
analyzed the subject on the left of the image (if viewing the
image from the left to the right, this would be the first person
viewed). For ease of interpretation, age was later collapsed into
a binary variable of <25 or 25+ years for the gendered analysis.
Thinness and muscularity of the people in the images were rated
using line drawing figure scales: the Figure Rating Scale (also
known as Stunkard scale) for male and female thinness [25]
and modified versions of this scale for male and female
muscularity [26,27]. These scales use simple drawings of male
and female figures to assess thinness and muscularity of men
and women on scales of 1 (very thin or very little visible muscle)
to 9 (very overweight or very muscular). Body parts emphasized
were determined by visual cues such as proximity to the camera,
cropping, and captions which drew attention to particular body
parts.
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Figure 1. Examples of posts included in the content analysis. These posts demonstrate the following variables, among others: (L-R) full body, active
exerciser, healthy eating, and sexualisation.
Each post was analyzed by 2 independent coders. Both coders
were trained in using the codebook before the analysis process
using example posts not included in the analysis. Coders were
instructed to assess the main messages or clear implications of
the post, and to use any visible captions, hashtags, and comments
to give context to the post. Coders were instructed to view
videos, if possible, using links embedded in screenshots taken
with tagboard.com. If this was not possible, coders rated the
single frame video preview. Reliability was analyzed between
the 2 coders using Cohen kappa for categorical variables (see
Multimedia Appendix 1). Categorical variables included in the
analysis exceeded the recommendation for a minimum value
of κ=.60 [28] and percentage agreements for these variables
ranged from 87.8% (for “Full Body”) to 99.5% (for “Platform”).
Five categorical variables were removed due to low reliability.
Reliability was analyzed for ordinal and interval-level variables
using Spearman rho; these values were highly correlated,
ranging from with ρ=.74 for thinness to ρ=.96 for number of
women present. A third reviewer, the lead author, independently
analyzed any discrepancies in accordance to the codebook with
consideration of the 2 primary coders’ data, making the final
decision and forming the final dataset.
Gender Analysis
In posts containing men only and those containing women only,
gender differences in mean thinness and muscularity ratings
were analyzed using independent ttests, and chi-square or Fisher
exact tests were used for analyzing categorical variables by
gender of subjects. Cohen dor the phi coefficient was used to
calculate effect sizes. Analyses were conducted in Stata version
13 (StataCorp LLC).
Results
Description of Content
Across the 30-minute composite study period, 476 social media
posts tagged with “#fitspo” were retrieved across the 4
platforms. After removal of 61 irrelevant posts (κ=.73; see
Multimedia Appendix 1), 415 of 476 posts (87.2%) were coded
(Table 1). The most content was posted to Instagram (360/415,
86.8%), followed by Tumblr (39/415, 9.4%), Facebook (12/415,
2.9%), and Twitter (4/415, 1.0%) (κ=.98). Due to the relatively
small number of posts across Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter,
variables were not compared by platform.
Most #fitspo posts contained a photograph or another image,
and around 1 in 10 posts contained a video. More women
appeared in posts than men, but men still appeared in nearly
one third of posts; 40.5% (168/415) depicted at least one woman
and 31.6% (131/415) depicted at least one man. In general,
subjects of posts appeared to be young adults. Most posts were
thematically related to exercise or fitness, although around 1 in
6 was thematically related to food (Table 1). Most messages
about food (64/68, 94%) were found in posts without any people
present, whereas most messages about exercise (245/295,
83.1%) were found in posts with at least one person present.
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Table 1. Description of social media posts tagged with #fitspo (N=415).
Posts n (%)LevelCategoryType of variable
67 (16.1)Motivational or inspirational quote or textTextStructure
330 (79.5)Caption presentCaption
332 (80.0)Photo presentPhoto
41 (9.9)Video presentVideo
112 (27.0)Post contains a selfieSelfie
283 (68.2)At least one person present
Persona
Subjects
7 (1.7)<18Age (years)
104 (25.1)18-24
81 (19.5)25-34
12 (2.9)35-44
1 (0.2)45+
10 (2.4)Multiple people of different ages
68 (16.4)Unclear
132 (31.8)Not applicable; no people present
151 (36.4)Women only
Genderb
114 (27.5)Men only
17 (4.1)Women and men
1 (0.2)Unclear
132 (31.8)Not applicable; no people present
295 (70.1)Thematically relates to exercise or fitness onlyExerciseTheme
68 (16.4)Thematically relates to food or eating onlyFood
13 (3.2)Thematically relates to both food or exerciseBoth
39 (9.4)Thematically relates to neither food nor exerciseNeither
aMean number of people present per post: 1.4 (SD 1.7, when at least one person present).
bMean number of men present: 1.1 (SD 0.7); mean number of women present: 1.4 (SD 2.0, when at least one man or one woman were present,
respectively).
Gendered Analysis
Gendered analyses of posts depicting only men and posts
depicting only women (265/415, 63.9%) were conducted. On
the Figure Rating Scales, female subjects had significantly lower
mean thinness scores (Mean 3.0, SD 1.2) than male subjects
(Mean 4.4, SD 1.1), P<.001, Cohen d=−1.11, large effect.
Female subjects also had significantly lower muscularity scores
(Mean 4.1, SD 1.7) than male subjects (Mean 6.0, SD 1.2),
P<.001, Cohen d=−1.30, large effect. Of note, these thinness
and muscularity analyses were conducted only among posts
where reviewers were able to assess thinness (n=126 for female
subjects, n=89 for male subjects) and muscularity (n=116 for
female subjects, n=94 for male subjects).
Categorical variables are presented in Table 2 (variable
descriptions available in Multimedia Appendix 1). Posts
containing women only were significantly more likely to display
the subject’s full body than posts containing men only. Posts
containing men only were significantly more likely to have their
subject's face visible than posts containing women only. Nearly
half of posts emphasized the subject’s stomach or contained an
active exerciser, regardless of gender. Women were sexualized
significantly more than men, although sexualization was
common for both men and women. Posts containing women
only emphasized the subject’s buttocks significantly more
frequently than posts containing men only. Before and after
images, and messages about food and healthy eating, were
relatively rare regardless of gender. Messages about food and
healthy eating were generally depicted in posts without any
people present.
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Table 2. Content of social media #fitspo posts by gender of subject when only one gender was present in the post.
Effect sizePhi (φ)PvalueMale subjects only
(n=114)
n (%)
Female subjects only
(n=151)
n (%)
CategoryType of variable
Medium.33<.00131 (37.8)78 (70.9)<25 yearsAge of subjects
Structure of post
.4911 (9.7)11 (7.3)Motivational text
.6086 (75.4)118 (78.2)Caption
.4098 (86.0)135 (89.4)Photo
.1421 (18.4)18 (11.9)Video
.0938 (33.3)66 (43.7)Selfie
Theme of post
.582 (1.8)1 (0.7)
Food onlya
.06104 (91.2)126 (83.4)Exercise only
Objectification
Small.17.00577 (67.5)76 (50.3)Face visible
Small.20.00151 (44.7)98 (64.9)Full body or nearly full body visible
.4747 (41.2)69 (45.7)Emphasis on stomach
Large.71<.0012 (1.8)38 (25.2)
Emphasis on buttocksa
Small.19.00233 (29.0)72 (47.7)Sexualization
Other variables
.641 (0.9)3 (2.0)
Before or aftera
.515 (4.4)4 (2.7)
Healthy eatinga
.9361 (53.5)80 (53.0)Active exerciser
aChi-square tests only performed with minimum frequency >5 per cell. Fisher exact test was used if cell frequency was 5 or fewer.
Discussion
Principal Findings
This study aimed to analyze the content of posts with the #fitspo
hashtag over a composite 30-minute period across the social
media platforms Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr,
comparing messages of fitspiration by gender of the subject.
As hypothesized, the vast majority of posts in this time period
were posted to Instagram, followed by Tumblr, probably due
to their highly visual nature. Similar to the findings of
Tiggemann and Zaccardo [21], female subjects were more
frequently depicted in fitspiration than male subjects; however,
a third of posts depicted at least one male subject. This indicates
that, in contrast to the female focus of previous fitspiration
research (eg, [3,7]), it is likely that fitspiration is reaching men
and may influence the body image, exercise, and health
behaviors of male followers as well as female followers. As
such, future research should investigate the potential impact of
these images on men.
Posts depicting women, which are likely aimed at female social
media users, typically depicted young adult women meeting
either the thin ideal or the athletic ideal. Posts depicting very
muscular women were also common, and may indicate an
increase in the popularity of body building among women.
Female subjects were frequently objectified and sexualized,
with emphasis on the idealized look of their full body and body
parts such as the stomach and buttocks. Considering the
popularity of fitspiration among young women [5], and the
detrimental effects on female body image observed previously
[7,10], it is fair to assume that young women viewing this
content are frequently exposed to images of thin and athletic
ideal bodies, often sexualized, and that this content has the
power to influence their body image and encourage exercise to
alter their appearance. Furthermore, only half of the images of
women actually depicted women’s faces (face-ism [19]),
following a similar trend to that observed by Tiggemann and
Zaccardo [21]. This trend may also be related to greater
self-objectification, particularly in the context of social media,
where the profile pictures of male users are more likely to depict
their faces compared with female social media users [29].
Interestingly, men were frequently objectified, albeit in different
ways to women. Although men had their faces in images more
often than women, posts depicting men (presumably aimed at
male social media users) depicted subjects that were highly
muscular—significantly more muscular than female subjects.
Images of men focused on stomachs at a similar frequency to
women, but unlike women, men’s stomachs nearly always had
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visible abdominal muscles. Although not included in this
analysis, images of men often emphasized visible biceps and
pectoral muscles. Compared with posts with female subjects,
in the images of men there was little emphasis on thinness or
weight loss. This is aligned with current body ideals for men
[13] and a general trend seen in the media of increased muscle
mass in images of male bodies over time [30]. However,
previous research indicates that young men access fitspiration
on social media less frequently than young women [5]. There
may be a small group of social media users posting content to
the #fitspo hashtag who are very active and have a small but
dedicated male audience. It is also possible that male social
media users are accessing similar content but not on social media
or do not consider this content to be fitspiration, and use
different hashtags to label the fitness material they post (eg,
#swoll which refers to swollen muscles).
Despite these concerns, it is possible that social media users
viewing fitspiration are inspired to exercise, and that they view
fitspiration in a positive manner. Qualitative research indicates
that young female fitspiration users appreciate the ease of access
to health and fitness information provided by fitspiration and
generally choose to follow normalized and dominant health
discourses [6]. Many posts were identified with balanced
approaches to health and fitness. However, only half of the posts
contained a subject actively exercising. A large number of posts
focused on users’bodies, including flat stomachs and muscles,
often in a posed and sexualized manner. The implication of
these findings is that a subset of fitspiration is focused on
appearance. Previous research has noted that exercising for
appearance-based purposes is associated with increased body
image concerns and disordered eating symptomatology [31].
This content also suggests that being fit and healthy is equivalent
to fitting in with current masculine and feminine body ideals;
in many posts, fitness and beauty were depicted as being
essentially the same concept.
More experimental and longitudinal research is needed to
identify the impacts of fitspiration on both body image and
exercise behavior, particularly for male users. However, in the
context of the small body of experimental research [7] which
indicates short-term harms of fitspiration in women, and
qualitative research which indicates that some young female
social media users have internalized messages about idealized
bodies depicted in fitspiration [6], there may be a need to
develop interventions to prevent such harms in the long term.
It has been suggested that focusing on the benefits of fitness
without also emphasizing thinness may offer promising results
regarding body image and physical activity for young women
[32]. Such an approach may also be worthwhile for young men,
emphasizing the benefits of exercise without emphasizing
muscularity.
The results of the content analysis in this study suggest that
interventions to reduce potential harms of fitspiration could
focus on critically analyzing objectifying messages in
fitspiration, and other content aiming to inspire people to
exercise and be healthy. Interventions aimed at women could
aim to reduce pressures to be both thin and muscular and
deconstruct the relationship between fitness, sexuality, and
beauty; interventions aimed at men could focus on reducing the
pressure to be muscular (particularly in the upper body). Further
research could aim to develop these interventions for both
general communities (eg, social media users) and clinical
populations (eg, young people experiencing eating disorders).
Furthermore, fitspiration communities appear to be most active
on Instagram, suggesting that any social media–based
interventions should focus primarily on Instagram, with a
secondary emphasis on Tumblr and other platforms. However,
due to the diverse nature of tagging on different social media
sites, it is possible that fitspiration communities are very active
on other social media platforms. Furthermore, fitspiration
websites [20] should not be ignored when developing
interventions.
Of note, coders also identified several themes that were not
included in the analysis and have not been included in previous
content analyses. These include: presence of professional fitness
models; suspected instances of image manipulation; emphasis
on back muscles; depiction of protein powder or supplements;
tie-ins with particular products, companies, diets, or trends (eg,
“clean eating,” “bikini bodies”); or depictions of particular
subcommunities such as “fit mothers” and people tracking
“fitness journeys.” Future research should consider these areas
and the potential impact that they might have on male and
female body image.
Limitations
The authors acknowledge the limitations of this study. Although
the study utilized 3 independent coders, the majority of variables
included in the framework were subjective. Certain variables
were nonspecific and only allowed simple yes or no coding. It
is possible that our composite half hour did not accurately
represent social media fitspiration; social media users may
follow dedicated fitspiration blogs and pages rather than use
hashtag-based searching, especially since searching for recent
hashtags is difficult on some platforms. Fitspiration profiles
may also be private and some posts would not have been
extracted in our analysis. We only analyzed 1 hashtag (“#fitspo”)
due to time resources; this hashtag was chosen over #fitspiration
(which was used by Tiggemann and Zaccardo [21]) as #fitspo
returned approximately 4 times the number of results. Although
many posts analyzed also contained the #fitspiration hashtag,
our analyses can only be interpreted as relating to this 1 hashtag.
Little detail could be provided about videos as not all were able
to be viewed; some of these videos were coded as single still
images. Furthermore, in order to analyze similar styles of posts
across platforms, only “most recent” posts were viewed.
Although representative of posts uploaded and tagged within a
particular time frame, we are unable to provide information
about the “most popular” form of fitspiration.
Conclusions
Overall, this study indicates that fitspiration on social media
often encourages exercise in order to reach an appearance
aligned with gendered body image ideals [8,13]. Our results
also indicate that fitspiration imagery features men nearly as
often as it features women and that men are just as likely to be
objectified as women, albeit in different ways. These findings
suggest a need to experimentally examine the impact of
fitspiration-style posts on body image and exercise behaviors,
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including fitspiration and other fitness media aimed at men. If
such research identifies harms of fitspiration, further research
is also required to determine the best strategies to minimize
potential harms. Interventions should focus on Instagram and
Tumblr and consider their highly visual nature and mobile
formats, and gendered body image messages.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully thank Paige Kernebone and Michelle Motteram for their contribution to coding the content, and Alyce Vella and
Cassandra Wright for assisting with the development of the codebook. The authors also acknowledge the contribution to this
work of the Victorian Operational Infrastructure Support Program received by the Burnet Institute. ML is supported by the Jim
and Margaret Beever Fellowship from the Burnet Institute.
Conflicts of Interest
None declared.
Multimedia Appendix 1
Content Analysis Codebook.
[PDF File (Adobe PDF File), 44KB-Multimedia Appendix 1]
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Edited by G Eysenbach; submitted 17.07.16; peer-reviewed by E Holland, M Moreno, C Fernández; comments to author 14.11.16;
revised version received 11.12.16; accepted 15.02.17; published 29.03.17
Please cite as:
Carrotte ER, Prichard I, Lim MSC
“Fitspiration” on Social Media: A Content Analysis of Gendered Images
J Med Internet Res 2017;19(3):e95
URL: http://www.jmir.org/2017/3/e95/
doi: 10.2196/jmir.6368
PMID: 28356239
©Elise Rose Carrotte, Ivanka Prichard, Megan Su Cheng Lim. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research
(http://www.jmir.org), 29.03.2017. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete
bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information
must be included.
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