Taylor Swift’s journey with body image issues, disordered eating, and objectification has not only shaped her life but also had a significant impact on her fans.
A new study from the University of Vermont shows that Swift’s honesty about her struggles has had a positive impact on her fans’ views on these issues.
The study analyzed the top 200 TikTok and Reddit posts, encompassing over 8,300 online comments related to Taylor Swift, eating disorders, and body image.
The goal was to assess the impact of Swift’s disclosures about her past eating disorder on her followers.
“Our findings suggest that fans who felt highly connected to Swift were influenced to positively change their behaviors or attitudes around eating or their body image because of Swift’s disclosures and messages in her music,” says Associate Professor Lizzy Pope of UVM’s Nutrition and Food Sciences Department, a registered dietitian nutritionist, in the press release.
Positive themes emerge from online discussions
The analysis of thousands of online comments revealed several positive themes. Fans viewed Swift as a role model for eating disorder recovery and found inspiration in her story and music to embark on their own recovery journeys.
“Fans seemed to take inspiration from the fact that Swift had recovered from disordered eating and subsequently appeared to be thriving,” adds Kelsey Rose, a UVM Clinical Assistant Professor and registered dietitian nutritionist specializing in eating disorder treatment.
Many of Swift’s songs touch on eating disorders and body image pressures. Her honest discussions about her struggles in her 2020 film, Miss Americana, have deeply resonated with fans. These revelations are powerful because they challenge societal norms and the diet culture often promoted by celebrities.
Swift’s transparency has helped reduce the stigma around eating disorders among her fans. This is important because stigma-related shame can stop people from seeking help and harm their health.
The complexity of body objectification
Despite Swift’s overall positive influence, the study found that fans often continued to objectify her body. There was a conflicted discourse regarding Swift’s artistic decision to display the word “fat” on a scale in her video for “Anti-Hero.”
“Although in Miss Americana Swift says, ‘I’m so sick of being objectified, and it’s driven me to disordered eating,’ the fans were still commenting on her body. Even if it was meant to be positive, fans would still comment, which means that they didn’t completely internalize her message of, ‘please do not comment on people’s bodies anymore,’” explains Pope.
The researchers observed that even when fans intended to defend Swift, they would often say things like, “She’s gained weight, she looks so happy and healthy now,” inadvertently continuing the cycle of objectification.
Pope and Rose, surrounded by students who idolize Swift and are affected by diet culture, wanted to study Swift’s impact. They explored how Swift’s honesty about her eating struggles influenced her fans’ views on disordered eating, their bodies, and diet culture.
Empowering fans and highlighting systemic issues
The study’s results demonstrate that Swift’s public disclosures about her struggles with disordered eating and diet culture have empowered her fans. Fans of all body sizes shared how Swift’s honesty had helped them improve their own relationships with food and body image.
Swift’s Eras Tour, featuring a diverse cast of dancers, further challenges the notion that expert dancers must conform to a single body size, according to the researchers.
The researchers hope their study will encourage Swift and other celebrities to leverage their societal influence for positive change.
“Taylor Swift can do more to change attitudes with a few sentences than we can do in our entire careers,” says Pope in the press release.
“So, it’s important to study people that have that kind of impact. There is little doubt that if she chooses to be, Swift can be a powerful voice for health, wellness, and more weight-inclusive practices that may move society closer to the idea of body liberation.”
The findings were published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.
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