How does social media addiction make you fear exercise? The relationship between social media addiction and kinesiophobia among college students: the mediating role of social physique anxiety.

Objective: As social media becomes deeply embedded in daily life, concerns have emerged regarding its influence on health-related behaviors. The present study examines how social media addiction relates to kinesiophobia among Chinese college students, with particular attention to the mediating role of social physique anxiety. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed, involving 395 college students (age range 18-21 years, all first-year students). Measurements were conducted using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), the Social Physique Anxiety Scale (SPAS-15), and the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK). Body mass index (BMI) was calculated based on self-reported height and weight. Pearson correlation analysis was used to examine relationships among the variables, and mediation analysis was performed using the PROCESS macro (Model 4) for SPSS, with gender, age, and BMI included as control variables. The significance of the mediation effect was tested using 5,000 bootstrap samples. Results: (1) Social media addiction was significantly positively correlated with kinesiophobia ( Conclusion: The findings suggest that social media addiction is associated with exercise avoidance both directly and indirectly through heightened concerns about body-related evaluation. Due to the cross-sectional design, causal inferences cannot be drawn. These results highlight the role of psychosocial factors in shaping exercise-related fear.