Exploring the Social Psychology of College Students’ Body Anxiety through the Social Significance of Size Labels

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_29How to use a DOI?

Keywords

body anxiety; size labels; social psychology; college students

Abstract

This study explores the social significance of size labels and their impact on college students’ body anxiety, focusing on college students. Integrating sociocultural theory and mental health research, this study employs a mixed-methods approach, including questionnaires and in-depth interviews, collecting quantitative data from 240 college students and qualitative insights from 7 interviewees. The study systematically examines: (1) how size labels are internalized as standards for evaluating body image and influence students’ body satisfaction; and (2) how “idealized body images” on social media, body-related comments in family settings, and peer comparisons exacerbate body anxiety through psychological internalization. The findings reveal that size labels are widely internalized as benchmarks for body evaluation among college students, significantly affecting their body image satisfaction. Moreover, idealized body portrayals on social media, familial body criticism, and peer comparisons collectively intensify body anxiety. Based on these results, this paper proposes strategies such as educational interventions, media literacy enhancement, and family/peer support to help students cultivate a healthier body image, alleviate anxiety, and improve mental well-being and quality of life.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruwen Zheng
AU  - Jixian Wang
AU  - Siyao Li
AU  - Yanxiang Wang
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/31
TI  - Exploring the Social Psychology of College Students’ Body Anxiety through the Social Significance of Size Labels
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 6th International Conference on Mental Health, Education and Human Development (MHEHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 251
EP  - 257
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_29
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-460-0_29
ID  - Zheng2025
ER  -