ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Digital Impacts
What I Eat in a Day Videos: The influence of visual body cues on body dissatisfaction and eating intentions
Provisionally accepted
- Florida State University, Tallahassee, United States
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This study investigates how visual body cues in TikTok videos affect young viewers' perceptions of body image and general eating intentions. In this study, 78 female participants viewed six messages: three without body cues and three with either thin or muscular ideal cues in a randomized order in a 2 (thin ideal versus muscular ideal) x 3 (repetition of messages) x 2 (present vs. absence) mixed factorial design. After viewing each video, self-reported eating intentions and body dissatisfaction were measured. Results suggested that participants who view videos with body cues reported significantly lower eating intentions and higher body dissatisfaction. Although thin ideal cues led to higher body dissatisfaction compared to muscular ideal cues, no significant effect on eating intentions was found. Findings showed that body shape concerns significantly moderated the effects of body cues on body dissatisfaction and the effects of ideal cues on eating intentions, with individuals having higher body shape concerns experiencing more pronounced changes. Implications are discussed.
Keywords: What I Eat in a Day, TikTok, body image, Eating Intention, Social Media, social comparison, experiment
Received: 29 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Park, Bailey and Park. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rachel L. Bailey, rbailey2@fsu.edu
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