Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between health-related social media content consumption and the perceived media and peer pressures for being thin and dieting. The study involved 352 young women from Croatia, between 18 and 21 years of age. An online questionnaire was used to collect data on their social media use, the perceived media and peer pressures relating to appearance, and their dieting behavior. The results indicate that young women from Croatia mostly use Instagram to follow health-related content, and the majority of them spend up to 30 minutes per day following this type of content on social media. The use of social media, as well as the media and peer pressures experienced by young women to be thin, directly predicted their dieting behavior. At the same time, health-related content consumption indirectly predicted dieting as well, but only through pressure that young women experience from the media. The findings of this study are useful for designing future interventions with the aim of alleviating the experience of sociocultural pressures and reducing dieting among young women who follow health-related content on social media.