The impact of body-positive and fitspirational influencers on body satisfaction: a longitudinal study of evolving parasocial relationships.

Body-focused influencers are ubiquitous on social media, promoting diverse messages around physical appearances, fitness, and self-acceptance. This longitudinal study investigates how repeated exposure to body-positive, fitspirational, and nonbody-focused influencers shapes users' parasocial relatio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Human Communication Research Vol. 52; no. 2; pp. 90 - 106
Autores principales: Breves, Priska L, Boerman, Sophie C, Stein, Jan-Philipp, Ischen, Carolin, Berlo, Zeph M C van
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Apr2026
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Body-focused influencers are ubiquitous on social media, promoting diverse messages around physical appearances, fitness, and self-acceptance. This longitudinal study investigates how repeated exposure to body-positive, fitspirational, and nonbody-focused influencers shapes users' parasocial relationship development, wishful identification, appearance-based social comparison, and body satisfaction over a 3-week period. Using a mobile-based experience sampling method, participants were exposed to daily influencer content and completed surveys at four time points (N  = 181, N  = 155, N  = 142, N  = 112). Findings show that parasocial relationships developed most strongly with the body-positive influencer, while no significant increase was found for the fitspirational and control conditions. Over time, exposure to body-positive content led to increases in wishful identification and body satisfaction, whereas fitspirational content did not produce significant longitudinal effects. Social comparison intensity was higher in both body-focused conditions compared to the control, but remained stable over time.