Kara Christensen Pacella and graduate student Maegan Nation (both Psychology) published a new paper in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, "Negative Affect as a Mediator Between Exposure to Fitspiration and Thinspiration and Disordered Eating Behaviors: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study." They found that, among young women with disordered eating, viewing "fitspiration" or "thinspiration" imagery on Instagram was associated with small increases in negative emotion. In turn, this increased the odds of engaging in eating disorder behaviors (i.e., binge eating, restricting) within the next two hours, although effects were small.
