Media Exposure and Body Dissatisfaction: The Roles of Thin-Ideal Internalization and Social Comparison

Media exposure is considered to have a prominent influence on body dissatisfaction. Researchers tend to measure thin-ideal media exposure when examining the relationship with body dissatisfaction yet often generalize their conclusions to media as a whole. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between thin-ideal media and general media and body dissatisfaction while accounting for relationships with thin-ideal internalization and social comparison. A sample of 216 undergraduate female students completed a set of online self-report surveys. It was hypothesized that thin-ideal media exposure would directly relate to body dissatisfaction, and this relationship would be mediated by thin-ideal internalization and social comparison. General media exposure was not hypothesized to contribute significantly to the model. Consistent with the hypothesis, thin-ideal media exposure predicted body dissatisfaction, and the relationship was mediated by thin-ideal internalization and social comparison; however, this was not the case after controlling for BMI. BMI and thin-ideal internalization were the only significant predictors of body dissatisfaction after the inclusion of all other assessed variables. General media exposure did not significantly correlate with or predict body dissatisfaction. These findings suggest that other risk factors should be investigated to understand their influence on body dissatisfaction better.