The Effect of Simultaneous Exercise and Exposure to Thin-Ideal Music Videos on Women’s State Self-Objectification, Mood and Body Satisfaction

The present study examined the simultaneous impact of thin-ideal music videos and exercise on state self-objectification,
mood and body satisfaction, in order to assess whether exercise can ameliorate the usually found negative effects of appearance-focused
media. One-hundred and eighty-four South Australian undergraduate women viewed appearance-focused or neutral music videos,
with half in each condition simultaneously participating in a bout of exercise or in quiet rest. Participants completed pre-
and post- state measures of mood, body satisfaction and self-objectification. As expected, exposure to appearance-focused
music videos produced increased state self-objectification in comparison to neutral images. For body satisfaction, an interaction
emerged for the dimension of physical attractiveness, whereby women who exercised and watched appearance-focused video clips
felt more attractive than women watching the same clips who did not exercise, and felt no less attractive than women who watched
neutral clips. The findings demonstrate that thin-ideal music videos serve to increase state self-objectification, but that
exercise can ameliorate the negative effects of idealized media images on women’s feelings of physical attractiveness.