Study Finds Selfies on Thinstagram Create a Slimming Effect on Appearance

When you open Facebook or Instagram, chances are your feed is flooded with selfies.

Portraits, taken by a person holding the camera away from their body but pointing it toward themselves, have become increasingly popular in recent years.

But rather than being a self-indulgent fad, the fad is actually backed by science, as experts say they make you look slimmer.

In a new study, participants tended to rate women’s bodies as thinner when they viewed them in selfie photos than in photos taken from other angles.

Researchers from York St John University and the University of York asked 272 people to rate photographs of 10 volunteer models dressed in sportswear.

Excluding faces, each model’s body was photographed from various angles: from a traditional external perspective, a selfie taken at an arm’s length, a selfie taken with a selfie stick, or from the volunteer’s own perspective, with the camera facing down from the chin.

The analysis revealed that participants tended to judge the bodies in the selfie images as thinner than the bodies in the external perspective images.

Meanwhile, photos taken with the chin down were considered the least slim and attractive.

The researchers said the findings could reflect links between social media use and body dissatisfaction.

“Many of us see selfies every day as we navigate the growing number of social media platforms,” ​​they said.

‘We know that filters can change the way bodies appear.

“This research suggests that the angle from which the photograph is taken can change our judgments about body size, so that when we consume images on the Internet, even simple unfiltered selfies, what we see is not necessarily an accurate representation of the real life”.

writing in the diary Plus oneThey added: ‘It may be that participants considered selfie images to be more attractive because of the qualities they convey or are associated with.

‘Selfies have been suggested to support the idea that the person in the photo is more outgoing, sociable and open to experience.

“However, selfies have also been linked to more negative personality traits, such as narcissism and lack of confidence.”

The findings also revealed that people with a higher level of eating disorder symptoms also rated the bodies in the selfies more favorably.

The team said this could suggest that looking at selfies could be “more harmful” than other photos on social media for people who are vulnerable to developing eating disorders.