Not justwomen, men and teenagers are affected by Instagram influencers who set globalbenchmarks for ideal body shape, fashion and even facial trends, sayresearchers.
Whileperhaps not as focused on 'thinness' as women appear to be from femaleinfluencers, the study, published in the journal Body Image, confirmed malesare responding to the body image and fitness messages shared by Instagramleaders, some with millions of followers.
"Thismay mean men are less exposed to some of the negatives of social media butconfirms the influence of fitspiration ('fitspo') and body image on this onlineplatform," said study author from the Flinders University in Australia.
Despite therise in use of social media, there haven't been many studies into its effect onmen and the new study found there are similarities and differences betweenwomen and men.
"Whileparticipants all had some vulnerable responses to some types of social mediaimagery, results typically obtained for women cannot simply be generalised tomen," said study author Marika Tiggemann, who has extensively researchedthe power of social media images on body image, eating and other behaviour inwomen.
Accordingto the researchers, the new study shows there is a high level of response tofitspiration goals via Instagram influencers.
"It isinteresting that both the fitspiration and fashion images made participantsfeel more inspired to exercise, and we have certainly seen a rise in menfollowing international fitspo and professional sporting heroinfluencers," said study co-author Isabella Anderberg.
The teamstudied responses from 300 US adult men aged 18-30 who were randomly shownimages of bare-chested (fitspiration), clothed (fashion) and control images,similar to those posted by Instagram influencers.
It wasfound that exposure to bare-chested and muscular images resulted insignificantly lower body satisfaction relative to viewing clothed fashionimages or scenery images.
"It'simportant to expand this research, including on the 'Brotox' facial ideals setin social media which is leading to more men reportedly using skin products andeven cosmetic fillers and botox to keep up to influencers," Anderbergnoted.