Young People's Experiences of Engaging With Fitspiration on Instagram: Gendered Perspective

Abstract

Background: Fitness inspiration or fitspiration is a term used to describe web-based images of fit people, people in the gym, health foods, or inspirational quotes relating to diet and fitness being shared and consumed via visual social media. The popularity of this content is most notable via the Instagram platform. Currently, the majority of fitspiration research has focused on women's experiences; however, increasingly, studies have pointed to the need to explore the gendered ways by which people engage with this content.

Objective: The aim of this study is to explore how young men and women engage in fitspiration content on Instagram and provide a gendered analysis of how and why they consume this content.

Methods: This study used a cross-sectional web-based survey (N=1213) of UK-based fitspiration users aged 18-24 years consisting of closed-ended questions to capture quantitative data.

Results: The majority actively using Instagram for fitspiration (therefore eligible participants) were women (826/1175, 70.30%). Men were more likely to view content posted by athletes (χ²_{1, N=1153}=71.8; P=.001) and bodybuilders (χ²_{1, N=1153}=32.8; P<.001), whereas women were more likely to view content related to weight loss (χ²_{1, N=1153}=36.8; P<.001), diet plans (χ²_{1, N=1153}=11.9; P<.001), and celebrities' content (χ²_{1, N=1153}=33.5; P<.001). Men were more likely to use fitspiration as a source of inspiration to exercise to gain muscle or get stronger (χ²_{1, N=1147}=17.9; P<.001), whereas women were more likely to use fitspiration as inspiration for healthy eating (χ²_{1, N=1147}=37.7; P<.001), or to exercise to diet or lose weight (χ²_{1, N=1147}=13.5; P<.001). Women were more likely to engage in passive behaviors such as viewing content on their feed (χ²_{1, N=1139}=7.9; P=.005) or scrolling through accounts (χ²_{1, N=1139}=15.2; P<.001), whereas men were more likely to engage in active consumption by tagging fitspiration accounts in posts (χ²_{1, N=1139}=7.2; P=.007), commenting on posts (χ²_{1, N=1139}=8.1; P=.004), and posting fitspiration content (χ²_{1, N=1139}=6.4; P=.01).

Conclusions: Female fitspiration consumers engaged with content that reinforced the feminine thin but shapely ideal, whereas male users sought out content that reinforced the masculine muscular ideal. Male users were more likely to engage actively with content (eg, posting fitspiration content), while female users were more likely to engage passively (eg, scrolling through accounts, posts, or images). Future research should consider how fitspiration consumption reflects and reproduces oppressive gender ideology.

Keywords: body ideals; gender; men’s health; physical fitness; social media; women’s health.

Figure 1

Gender and fitspiration content.

Figure 2

Gender and fitspiration engagement.

Figure 3

Gender and reasons for fitspiration engagement.