Associations between Instagram addiction and food cravings in adult individuals: Mediating role of body self-compassion

Problematic social media use, particularly Instagram addiction, has been associated with maladaptive eating behaviors and increased food cravings, likely driven by exposure to idealized body images and food-related content, while body self-compassion may function as a protective factor by fostering adaptive emotion regulation and a more accepting relationship with the body. This study investigated whether the three subdimensions of body self-compassion, namely defusion, body acceptance, and common humanity, mediate the relationship between Instagram addiction and food cravings in adults. The sample consisted of 382 individuals aged 18 years and older (M = 24.96, SD = 9.11) without metabolic diseases affecting eating behavior, and a cross-sectional correlational design was employed. Data were collected using the Test for Instagram Addiction, the Food Cravings Questionnaire–Trait Short Form (FCQ-T-r), and the Body Compassion Scale, and correlation and mediation analyses with 5,000 bootstrap resamples were conducted, with each subdimension tested as a separate mediator. Results indicated that Instagram addiction was positively associated with food cravings (r = .435, p < .001) and negatively associated with defusion (r = −.550, p < .001) and body acceptance (r = −.210, p < .001), but not significantly related to common humanity (r = .086, p > .05), while food cravings were negatively related to defusion (r = −.568, p < .001) and body acceptance (r = −.203, p < .001). Mediation analyses revealed that the indirect effect of defusion was significant (B = .259, 95% BCA CI [.1889, .3340]), with the model explaining 34% of the variance. In addition, body acceptance demonstrated a small but significant indirect effect (B = .024, R² = .202), whereas the indirect effect of common humanity was not significant. These findings suggest that defusion may serve as a key psychological mechanism linking Instagram addiction to food cravings.