The Body as Status: Muscularity, Engagement, and Body Image Risk on #GymTok

Technical Summary: The Body as Status on #GymTok

Problem Statement
While extensive research exists regarding the "thin-ideal" and body image concerns among women, there is a significant gap in understanding how the "muscular-ideal" is represented and reinforced on visual social media platforms, particularly among boys and young men. Contemporary digital environments, such as TikTok, serve as primary contexts for identity formation and social comparison. The study addresses the lack of empirical data on #GymTok, a muscularity-oriented fitness subculture, specifically investigating how content themes, perceived harm, and user engagement interact to potentially amplify body image risks, muscle dysmorphia, and the use of appearance- and performance-enhancing drugs (APEDs).

Methodology
The study employed a quantitative content analysis of 2,210 TikTok videos sourced from the #GymTok hashtag. The data was drawn from a larger corpus (BigTok) compiled using TikTok's Research API, covering videos posted between January 2019 and January 2025.

• Taxonomy and Coding: Sixteen subject matter experts (clinical psychologists, social workers, and researchers) annotated the videos using a clinically informed taxonomy developed by Chu et al. (2026). The taxonomy categorized content into five primary themes: (1) Relationship to Body, (2) Relationship to Food, (3) Relationship to Exercise, (4) Supplement Abuse, and (5) Relationship to Masculinity.
• Harm Assessment: Annotators rated the perceived potential for psychological harm to viewers on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not harmful, 5 = extremely harmful), adopting the perspective of an impressionable young male viewer.
• Muscularity Classification: An automated Vision-Language Model (Gemini 2.5 Flash) was utilized to classify visible bodies into four categories based on the Visual Body Scale for Men: Underfat, Average, Athletic, and Bodybuilder.
• Engagement Metrics: Data on views, likes, shares, and comments were extracted for each video.
• Reliability: Intercoder reliability was assessed using Cohen's $\kappa$ for categorical data and Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) for harm severity ratings, demonstrating robust agreement.

Key Results

1. Content Themes and Prevalence:

   • The most prevalent themes were "Relationship to Exercise" (20.4%) and "Relationship to Body" (20.4%).
   • "Muscularity Self-objectification" was the single most common subcategory (21.8% of categorized videos), characterized by creators posing and flexing to highlight muscle definition.
   • "Relationship to Masculinity" was the least prevalent category (5.9%) but distinct in its focus on heteronormative ideals of strength and dominance.

2. Perceived Harm:

   • Perceived harm varied significantly by category. Content related to Supplement Abuse (including steroids and APEDs) and Relationship to Masculinity received the highest harm ratings.
   • Videos depicting Bodybuilder physiques were rated as significantly more harmful than those showing Average, Athletic, or Underfat bodies.
   • There was a positive correlation between the level of muscularity depicted and the perceived severity of harm.

3. Engagement Patterns:

   • Masculinity-focused content generated the highest levels of engagement (likes, shares, views, comments), despite being the least prevalent category.
   • Muscularity and Harm: Engagement metrics were positively associated with both the muscularity of the body depicted and the perceived harm of the content. Videos featuring Bodybuilder physiques and those rated as highly harmful received significantly more views, likes, shares, and comments than those with Average or Underfat bodies or lower harm ratings.
   • Engagement distributions were heavily right-skewed, indicating that a small number of viral videos drive the majority of interaction.

Key Contributions

• Empirical Evidence of Algorithmic Amplification: The study provides data-driven evidence that TikTok's engagement-driven recommendation system systematically amplifies content that is both highly muscular and perceived as harmful.
• Muscularity as Status: The findings suggest that on #GymTok, the body functions as a marker of status and social worth. The platform's dynamics reward extreme physiques and risky behaviors (e.g., steroid use, rigid dieting) with higher visibility, effectively normalizing these behaviors as pathways to masculine identity and social validation.
• Differentiation from Female-Oriented Research: The paper highlights distinct mechanisms in male body image concerns, noting that while women's content often emphasizes thinness, male-oriented content emphasizes muscularity, self-objectification, and the internalization of masculinity through physical discipline and risk-taking.

Significance and Claims
The authors claim that #GymTok is not merely a repository of fitness content but a digital environment where status competition is mediated through the body. The study posits that the convergence of social comparison theory and objectification theory is intensified by platform algorithms. By rewarding content that promotes extreme muscularity and potentially harmful behaviors with high engagement, the platform may inadvertently reinforce a feedback loop where:

1. Users are exposed to idealized, high-risk standards.
2. These standards are validated through peer engagement and algorithmic visibility.
3. This validation encourages further self-objectification and the adoption of maladaptive behaviors (e.g., APED use, disordered eating) to achieve social status.

The paper concludes that these dynamics contribute to body image risk among boys and young men, potentially escalating subclinical concerns into clinical pathologies such as muscle dysmorphia. The authors emphasize that the platform does not just reflect user preferences but actively shapes them by structurally positioning high-risk content for the widest reach.