Despite social media’s benefits, such as connecting millions of users all over the world, apps like Instagram have been linked to detrimental consequences for the mental health and self-esteem of their users. Ironically, even content designed to promote positivity and well-being on the platform, such as “fitspiration,” may be associated with undesirable consequences for users. Our goal was to gain a greater understanding of how users perceive different types of fitspiration posts and how exposure to these different types of fitspiration content are associated with changes in users’ mental health and well-being. Fifty-one females were surveyed each day over the course of a week about their Instagram usage, their personal Instagram feed content, and their self-esteem and mental health symptoms. We found that viewing fitspiration images of food was associated with greater reported motivation to eat a healthy meal and that viewing images of someone working out was associated with greater reported motivation to go to the gym. However, we also found that individuals reported significantly lower self-esteem on days where they were exposed to more before-and-after fitspiration images or sexually suggestive fitspiration images. These findings suggest that daily exposure to fitspiration content on Instagram may have some desired impacts but may also have unintended negative consequences.
