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Yujun Xu served as lead for visualization, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing.
This review presents an overview of recent trends in fitspiration, with a particular focus on its associated risks and potential tackling interventions. First, it was found that fitspiration is positively related to behavioral distortion (e.g., eating disorder and excessive exercise), cognitive distortion (e.g., body dissatisfaction and self-objectification), and negative emotion and mental health. Second, various interventions (e.g., social media literacy programs) have been explored or implemented to tackle the adverse effects brought by fitspiration. Third, although a significant volume of research is emerging that investigates fitspiration and its related risks and coping strategies, the research landscape is far from diverse and inclusive. Recommendations for future research are offered to encourage intercultural perspectives, gender, and age inclusion, and more qualitative and speculative research design.
Fitspiration, widely believed to be inspirational and benefit public health, triggers potential negative impacts and associated risks, including eating disorders, excessive exercise, body dissatisfaction, mental health issues, etc. Body-positive movement, social networking site regulation, and media literacy programs are proposed as interventions to create a better climate for digital-related health and well-being. Future fitspiration research could investigate across cultures, social network sites, genders, and age ranges to expand the research landscape.
Fitspiration, an emerging prolific digital trend of inspiring individuals to achieve an empowered body image through engaging in a healthier lifestyle (Prichard et al., 2020), has been prevailing as a healthy antidote to thinspiration that promotes bodily thinness. As fitspiration is designed to be inspirational and considered beneficial for health, it is not in lack of...





