#fitspiration is a popular social media trend for sharing fitness-related content. To date, however, it is not clear how best to harness the power of this trend to improve users’ health, including how best to tailor its content. In this study, a cross-sectional survey assessed intentions and perceptions of users who host fitspiration accounts on Instagram (n = 65), as well as young adult followers (n = 270). Fitstagrammers and men (across user groups) preferred messaging about earning fitness, whereas followers and women (across user groups) preferred messaging about the benefits of exercise efforts. Both fitstagrammers and followers also noted that they experience both positive and negative feelings in response to fitspiration images, with followers and women reporting more frequent negative feelings (vs fitstagrammers and men, respectively). These findings can inform the use of fitspiration as a health promotion tool, particularly with respect to tailoring content to match user preferences.
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