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Psychology prof says online exposure to idealized images creates ‘infinite’ opportunities for comparison  

TORONTO, May 01, 2024 – There’s a large and growing body of evidence pointing to potentially negative impacts of social media on mental health, from its addictive nature to disruptions in sleep patterns to effects on body image. Now, found young women who took a social media break for as little as one week had a significant boost in self-esteem and body image – particularly those most vulnerable to thin-ideal internalization.

“The statistician inside me was excited  –  we don't often see effect sizes this large in my area of psychology research because human behaviour is complicated and there's lots of variability,” says Psychology Professor , co-author of the paper. “We hope this study can be used to help protect young people and influence social media companies to give users more agency in how they interact with these platforms.”

The paper, out this week in the journal Body Image, is thought to be the first to look specifically at social-media breaks and body image. Mills, whose lab has been on the forefront of this kind of research, collaborated on the paper with graduate researcher Lindsay Samson and undergraduate Olivia Smith, both students at 91��ɫ. They expected that there might be recruitment challenges, but it turns out there was enthusiasm for taking a social media pause among the 66 first-year female undergraduates who participated. Half were instructed to continue their social media as per usual, while the other half were given instructions to refrain from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok and other social media use for one week. They conducted baseline surveys before the experiment, and tested the participants again after the week was over.

“There's natural variability in how people feel about their bodies and about themselves in general, so we took that into account statistically, and even after that there were still significant differences between the groups after one week,” says Mills, who is also the director of clinical training for the graduate psychology program.

The differences in the social media landscape are remarkable compared to when Mills started researching eating disorders and the effects of media, like magazines aimed at women.

“Back then, you could only spend so many minutes or hours looking at fashion and beauty magazines and they only came out once a month. There was a finite amount of content that you would be exposed to. With social media it's infinite. It's always new and novel, which triggers our brain's reward system that makes us want more and more of something.”

Mills says the improvements found in this study might be explained both by women spending far less time engaging in behaviours known to have a detrimental effect, such as comparisons with others, but they may have also replaced social media with healthier behaviours.

“If we're spending more time in real life, socializing with friends, getting sleep, getting outdoors, getting exercise, there could be secondary behaviours that fill the void left by social media. Future research will try to disentangle that.”

About 91��ɫ

91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ’s fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario’s Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contacts: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations and External Communications, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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Some disclaimers may even harm at-risk women

TORONTO, November 28, 2019 –Labels that warn an image has been altered or enhanced do nothing to mitigate women’s negative perceptions of their appearance, according to a study published in this week.  More importantly, some disclaimers heightened and even harmed body dissatisfaction in at-risk women, the study showed.

“Disclaimers aren’t helpful. Once that image hits the brain, it has a profound effect on the way a woman thinks about how her body should look, says Jennifer Mills, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and senior author on the study. “Telling people that the image is not real doesn’t change the fact that that image becomes internalized.”

Mills and Sarah McComb, a Ph.D. student in Mills’ lab and first author of the study, conducted a systematic review of 15 experimental studies and found that disclaimers were ineffective at reducing women’s body dissatisfaction following exposure to thin-ideal images.

The goal of the study was to determine the effectiveness of media disclaimers in protecting women’s body image and mood after exposure to thin-ideal media. The keywords “warning*” or “disclaimer*” and “body image” or “body dissatisfaction” were searched in the PsycINFO and MEDLINE/PubMed databases.

Researchers looked at several types of commonly used disclaimers on photos in the study. The ‘specific’ disclaimer tells the viewer which body part has been altered, the ‘warning or consequence’ disclaimer explains that the photo can be bad for body image or your health, the ‘generic’ disclaimer lets consumers know “This image has been digitally altered” and the ‘information’ disclaimer says the model is underweight.

“We found that specific disclaimers and warning disclaimers were harmful to women who were already very dissatisfied with their bodies – the disclaimers seemed to trigger their already negative feelings about their bodies,” says McComb.

“The warning disclaimer was especially harmful, because it also had negative impacts on women’s eating habits. Women who already had restrictive eating habits and who saw an image of a model with a warning label were actually found to eat less calories than when they saw the image without the disclaimer.”

Overall, 11 studies found that disclaimers were ineffective at mitigating body dissatisfaction after exposure to thin-ideal images (relative to no disclaimer), three studies found medium effects that disclaimers were effective at mitigating increased body dissatisfaction, and one study found a small-medium effect that disclaimers actually heightened body dissatisfaction.

“If the disclaimer is too specific it draws the person’s attention to parts of the body on a model that are unattainable or unrealistic,” says Mills.  “Individuals still want to look like the model despite knowing there is a disclaimer, because it draws our attention to the unrealistic body part. People tend to want what they cannot have.”

91��ɫ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. 91��ɫ students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. 91��ɫ U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, 91��ɫ is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni.

91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: Anjum Nayyar, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-736-2100 ext. 44543, anayyar@yorku.ca

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Doll’s designer will speak at 91��ɫ following film screening

TORONTO, January 17, 2019 – While Barbie is admired by some as a feminist role model reinvented with a variety of skin tones and body types, others still blame the plastic doll for negatively affecting girls’ body image.

This is just the type of debate that led Alison Halsall, assistant professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Humanities to organize a film screening and lecture about Barbie. It will be held on Monday, Jan. 21, 2019 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Second Student Centre, in the second-floor conference centre, at 91��ɫ’s Keele campus (see ).

Students, faculty and staff will watch the documentary Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie (directed by Andrea Nevins and released in 2018), which explores the inner workings of the toy giant Mattel during Barbie’s biggest reinvention, and examines the progress and setbacks the Barbie brand has experienced in the fight for gender equality.

Following the film, Halsall will host a conversation with Mattel’s Vice President and Head of Barbie Design, Kim Culmone, who championed the most inclusive Barbie doll line in the brand’s history. Unveiled in 2015, the collection featured a variety of skin tones, hair texture and body types – curvy, tall and petite.

Halsall, who teaches in the Children, Childhood and Youth program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, said she invited her first-year class to attend the event because of the importance of understanding how the marketing, brand and creation of Barbie constructed childhoods.

While Halsall played with Barbie as a child, she questions Barbie as a representation of ideal femininity. She believes, however, that the toy helps to provoke essential dialogue about sexism, body image and the idea of young girls being taught that heterosexuality is the norm.

About Kim Culmone:

Kim Culmone serves as Mattel’s Vice President and Head of Barbie Design, a position she has held since 2013. In this role, Culmone sets the global creative vision for the No. 1 girls’ toy property in the world. She and her team are focused on maintaining the brand’s position as a leader in innovation, a reflection of popular culture and a source of inspiration to children around the world.

Culmone started her career at Mattel in 1999 as a designer for Barbie. In 2015, she championed the Barbie Fashionistas collection, the most diverse Barbie doll line in the brand’s history that introduced a variety of skin tones, hair texture and body styles.

In 2016, the introduction of the Barbie Fashionistas generated 5 billion media impressions worldwide. This product reinvention led to a TIME cover and was named one of the Top 25 Inventions of 2016 by the magazine. It also received the coveted Doll of the Year Award from the Toy Industry Association.

About Alison Halsall:

, an assistant professor of Humanities at 91��ɫ since 2015, researches topics including gender identity in female protagonists in dystopian fiction. Her specialties are Victorian Studies, Modernisms, Children’s Literature and Adaptation, with particular emphasis on visual cultures, including the study of paintings and illustrations, contemporary film, comics and graphic novels.

Her published journal articles include Let It Grow! The Frozen Franchise and Transmedia Adaptation, which examines the transformations that Disney made to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale in the Frozen franchise to align the story with heteronormative values that define the Disney corporation. Halsall also co-edited a special issue of the International Research in Children's Literature journal on “Possible & Impossible Children: Children's Literature and Childhood Studies”, a collection of papers that reflect several theoretical changes that have occurred or are in the process of occurring in the interstices of childhood studies and children's literature. Currently, she is working on a monograph about world crisis comics for young people and is co-editing the first LGBTQ Comics Criticism Reader.

91��ɫ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. 91��ɫ students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. 91��ɫ U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, 91��ɫ is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. 91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: Vanessa Thompson, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-736-2100 ext. 22097, vthomps@yorku.ca

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