Human Development & Family Science Masters Theses

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The Impact of Social Media Body Challenges on Youths' Body Image
(North Dakota State University, 2021) Leonard, Kerrie Caitlin
Body challenges are an unresearched trend where an individual checks if their body can look a certain way to pass the specific challenge (e.g., the A4 paper challenge; seeing if one’s waist is smaller than an 8x11 vertical piece of paper). We asked 147 girls and gender-expansive youth open-ended questions about trying a body challenge, opinions, and feelings towards their body as a result of these challenges. Qualitative analyses revealed that 79.59% of youth have never tried a body challenge. Youth thought body challenges were negative, with themes of toxic, ridiculous, unhealthy, anti-feminist/social commentary, and the need for body positivity. Also, many youth (50.35%) reported negative feelings towards their bodies as a result of body challenges, with themes of bad, inadequate, insecure/self-conscious, and fat. Many youth felt no impact (34.04%). Understanding body challenges can help create strategies so that youth can be resilient to their harms.