New research shows that women's bodies appear slimmer in selfies compared to other angles. Viewing selfies may be more damaging to those who are vulnerable to eating disorders. The perspective of the study and the physique of the viewer may influence these perceptions. Research has also found a correlation between body evaluations and eating disorder thoughts and behaviors in viewers.
In a recent study, participants generally rated women in selfies as slimmer compared to photos taken from different angles. Ruth Knight from York St John University in the UK and Catherine Preston from the University of York in the UK recently published their research results in the journal PLOSONE.
Popular on social media, a selfie is a portrait taken by the subject of the photo, who holds the camera away from the body but points the lens towards themselves. Previous research has shown that viewing selfies may influence the viewer's judgment of the attractiveness of the photo subject and in some cases may lead to comparisons that may affect the viewer's satisfaction with their own appearance. However, such studies are limited and focus more on faces in photos than on bodies.
To uncover new insights, Knight and colleagues assessed female participants' judgments of 10 photos of female volunteers wearing athletic clothing taken from different angles.
Excluding the face, each volunteer's body was photographed from several angles: a traditional external perspective, a selfie taken at arm's length, a selfie using a selfie stick, or from the volunteer's own perspective, with the camera looking down from the chin. Participants also filled out a questionnaire measuring the extent of their eating disorder-related thoughts and behaviors.
Analyzing results from four different experiments, the researchers found that participants tended to rate bodies in selfie pictures as slimmer than bodies in outside-view pictures, but there was no significant difference in attractiveness ratings. Images with chins down were considered less slim than selfie images and the least attractive of all analyzed perspectives.
They also found evidence that participants with higher levels of certain eating disorder symptoms tended to rate their bodies higher in selfies. Based on this finding and the results of other previous studies, the researchers believe that viewing selfies may be more damaging than viewing other types of photos for people who are susceptible to developing eating disorders.
These findings highlight the potential link between social media use and body satisfaction. However, the researchers also pointed out some limitations of the study, such as the small number of participants and the lack of precise matching of photo angles between volunteer models, which may have affected judgments.
Future research could deepen our understanding of this issue by assessing how different photo angles affect judgments of different body types, or whether viewers' own weight-to-height ratio affects their judgments of photos.
The authors added: "As we browse an increasing number of social media platforms, many of us see selfies every day. We know that filters can change the appearance of the body. This study shows that the angle at which a photo is taken changes our judgments of body size, so when viewing images on the internet, even simple unfiltered selfies, what we see is not necessarily an accurate representation of real life."