An investigation of the impact of pro-anorexia website exposure on women’s self-esteem, body esteem and body dissatisfaction

The impact of thin ideal media exposure on women’s self and body cognitions has been a widely explored research topic over the past three decades. The aim of this investigation was to add to this area of research, providing an investigation of the impact of exposure to both a fashion oriented and a pro-anorexia website, on women’s self-esteem, body esteem and body dissatisfaction, controlling for the effects of eating disorder vulnerability and thin ideal internalisation. The sample comprised 113 female participants (age: M = 21.61, SD = 6.48) who were assigned to view one of three websites: A pro-anorexia website, a thin ideal fashion website, or an outdoor enthusiast appearance neutral website. Subsequent to website viewing, participants completed a self-report questionnaire assessing self-esteem, body esteem and body dissatisfaction. As hypothesised, participants exposed to a pro-anorexia website experienced significantly lower levels of self-esteem in comparison to participants exposed to a neutral website. However, contrary to expectations self-esteem was not found to differ between either fashion and pro-anorexia, or fashion and neutral participant groups. Also contrary to prediction, body esteem and body dissatisfaction did not differ significantly between pro-anorexia, fashion and neutral website exposure groups. On the whole, findings suggest that pro-anorexia website exposure may have negative cognitive effects on young women however further investigation is required. Implications of the results, and suggestions for future research are discussed.