Does exposure to thin ideal bodies increase self-disgust? Author Accepted Manuscript

Objectives: This study investigates whether exposure to thin-ideal body images, commonly encountered on social networking sites (SNSs), leads to increased body dissatisfaction, body-related anxiety, and self-disgust among young women. While previous research has established a link between SNS use and body dissatisfaction, the role of self-disgust in this context remains underexplored. Methods: A total of 59 healthy young women (M age = 24.49, SD = 3.66) with a normal BMI (M = 22.38, SD = 3.27) participated. Exclusion criteria included current or past eating disorders, psychopathology, or psychiatric medication use. Participants completed pre- and post-exposure measures of body satisfaction (S-BISS), body-related anxiety (PASTAS), and self-disgust (VAS) after viewing 15 thin-ideal images. A non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used due to non-normal data distribution. Results: Participants showed a significant decrease in body satisfaction (z = -3.017, p = .003). Self-disgust significantly increased for the stomach (z = -2.197, p = .028) and hips (z = -2.622, p = .009). Significant increases in body anxiety were observed for the waist (z = -2.352, p = .019), buttocks (z = -2.000, p = .046), muscular tone (z = -2.668, p = .008), and perceived overweight (z = -3.273, p = .001). No significant changes were found for thighs or legs. Conclusions: Consistent with sociocultural/objectification literature, thin-ideal exposure elicited immediate increases in dissatisfaction and anxiety and extended prior work by documenting state self-disgust as a plausible affective response. These findings underscore the need for media literacy interventions and further exploration of emotional mechanisms in body image disturbance. Generalizability is limited by the all-female and the single-session pre–post design without an active control. Effects should be interpreted as upper-bound estimates of immediate reactivity.