Fitspiration on Facebook: Physical, Social and Psychological Implications of Pakistani Female Students

Abstract

Fitspiration is a current online craze that aims to inspire Pakistani female students to eat well, stay confident and exercise. The objective of the study was to investigate the phycological (disordered eating), social (body shame) and physical (exercise behavior) implications among Pakistani female students who consume fitspiration content on Facebook. Fitspiration content on Facebook is the independent variable whereas the social, physical and psychological aspects of Pakistani female students are the dependent variables. The study was exploratory in nature and quantitative approach was applied. Convenience sampling technique was applied and the data was collected from 600 Pakistani female university students from 3 public and 3 private universities of Lahore to cater the quantitative part. Social comparison theory was applied in this study. A survey questionnaire was developed to collect data from the respondents. The current study employed partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. The empirical findings indicated that exposure to fitspiration content on Facebook have a significant impact on exercise behavior, body shame and disordered eating of Pakistani female university students.