ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
The effect of physical exercise on social appearance anxiety among college students: the serial mediating role of social media addiction and self-objectification.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Background: Social appearance anxiety (SAA) has become a prominent mental health issue among Chinese college students, and it is particularly exacerbated in the mobile Internet era, marked by the pervasive use of social media. As an active health-promoting behavior, physical exercise is widely recognized as being able to effectively alleviate individuals' mental health problems, yet its underlying psychological mechanisms remain inadequately explored. Therefore, this study is based on social comparison theory, this study aims to investigate the relationship between physical exercise and SAA among Chinese college students, and to examine the serial mediating role of social media addiction and self-objectification in this association. Methods: A convenience sampling method was adopted to administer a questionnaire survey among college students from universities in central China, yielding 415 valid responses. The measurement instruments included the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (PARS-3), Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAA), Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), and Self-Objectification Beliefs and Behaviors Scale (SOBB). Data analyses were performed using SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS 4.2 macro, and the Bootstrap method was adopted to test the serial mediating effects with 5,000 resamples. Results: Correlation analyses revealed significant bivariate correlations between all variables. Serial mediation analysis indicated that the total effect of physical exercise on SAA was -0.498, and the direct effect was -0.313, accounting for 62.85%. All three indirect paths were significant: the independent mediating effect of social media addiction was -0.080, accounting for 16.06%; the independent mediating effect of self-objectification was -0.083, making up 16.67%; and the serial mediating effect of social media addiction and self-objectification was -0.022, accounting for 4.42% of the total effect. Conclusion: Physical exercise helps reduce college students' SAA directly, and offers indirect benefits by suppressing social media addiction and alleviating self-objectification through independent and serial mediating pathways. These findings enrich the understanding of the psychological mechanisms through which physical exercise influences SAA, provide empirical evidence to advance the dynamic development of social comparison theory, and offer practical and targeted approaches to promote mental health in higher education contexts.
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