Associations between Social Media Usage and Disordered Eating: Mediated By Body Image Concerns and Moderated By Impulsivity

Abstract

The contemporary research was executed to explore the association amidst use of social media and disordered eating behaviours mediated by concerns about body image and moderated by impulsivity. The sample taken for our research was students of AJK University. Through our research investigation, we attempted to find out the difference of usage of social media, disordered eating behaviours, concerns about body image and impulsivity in proportion to the demographic variables (gender, age, psychological illness). Our research sample was consisted of 300 university students from various departments of university. Social media usage scale (SMUS), body image concerns (BICS), Barrat impulsivity scale revised_21 and eating attitude test (EAT) were implemented on sample students. Our research questionnaire contained 100 items and each questionnaire was administered to sample of 300 students. We used the software of SPSS for analysis of our data. We conducted the analysis of correlation to explore the association between use of social media and disordered eating behaviours and our research findings indicated that there is a positive significant correlation between use of social media and disordered eating behaviours and BICS significantly mediates the association of usage of social media and disordered eating behaviours and BISR significantly moderates association of usage of social media and disordered eating behaviours. The results of SPSS indicated  males have higher scores on SMUS, BICS and females have higher scores on impulsivity and eating attitudes. Moreover; younger adults perform higher scores on SMUS, BICS while adolescents perform higher scores on impulsivity and eating attitudes and individuals suffering from psychological illness tend to perform higher on SMUS, BICS, BISR with low eating attitudes than individuals with psychological illness.