How to Change Your Social Media Algorithm for Better Body Image
Have you ever opened social media feeling perfectly fine, only to put your phone down 20 minutes later feeling strangely dissatisfied with your body?
Maybe you’ve seen a stream of ‘what I eat in a day’ videos, fitness workouts or transformations. Weight-loss advice or carefully posed photos. Suddenly, you’re thinking about your stomach, what you ate for lunch or whether you should be exercising more.
It can seem as though this content simply appears. However, social media algorithms learn from what captures your attention and use that information to decide what to show you next.
While social media is only one of many things that can influence body image, changing what appears on your screen can be a useful way to create a more supportive online environment.
And, fortunately, your algorithm isn’t set in stone.
Where Does Our Body Image Come From?
Body image is the collection of thoughts, feelings and beliefs we have about our bodies. It includes how we see our appearance, but also how comfortable we feel living in our body and how much importance we place on the way it looks.
Our body image develops through our experiences in the world.
Family attitudes, peers, cultural expectations, advertising, experiences of stigma or discrimination, and messages about gender, health, weight, disability and appearance can all shape what we learn a body ‘should’ look like.
Social media adds another influence.
When we repeatedly see particular body types presented as attractive, healthy or desirable, our perception of what is ‘normal’ can become surprisingly narrow.
The reality, of course, is much broader. Human bodies naturally vary in size, shape, ability, skin colour, age and appearance. Having a rigid belief of what bodies ‘should’ look like is one of the main drivers behind poor body image and body dysmorphic disorder.
So, curating your feed can be one way of making your online world better reflect the true diversity, and support healthier body image.
Start With Social Media Literacy
Before changing your feed, it can help to become curious about what you’re already consuming.
Social media is rife with misinformation. Social media literacy means developing the skills to question and deconstruct what you see online, rather than automatically taking it at face value. We can start to do this by asking ourselves:
- Why am I being shown this?
- Is someone selling me something?
- Has this image been posed, edited or filtered? What isn’t being shown?
- What message does this post send about bodies, health or worth?
You can also build social media literacy by learning to spot pseudoscience online.
It can also be helpful to pay attention to how content makes you feel. If an account or certain content regularly leaves you scrutinising your appearance, worrying about food or feeling pressure to change your body, you don’t have to wait until it becomes more distressing before changing what you see.
If something repeatedly leaves you feeling worse about yourself or more focused on your body, that’s enough reason to mute, unfollow or tell your algorithm you’re not interested.
Comparing Ourselves Online
Research suggests that the more we compare ourselves to others on social media, the more likely we are to feel dissatisfied with our bodies and experience concerns around eating and body image.
Social media gives us an endless supply of people to compare ourselves with, creating an unending comparison trap. Often, we’re comparing ourselves to carefully curated moments, which might bring on thoughts like, ‘Why doesn’t my body look like that?’, ‘Should I be eating like them?’ or ‘Everyone else seems more confident than me.’
A good first step is to notice when you’re comparing yourself with others and try not to let that comparison become another reason to criticise yourself. Instead, you can learn how to be more compassionate with yourself by remembering that you’re responding to an environment that places considerable value on appearance.
So, when you notice comparison showing up, consider it a cue to ask: Is what I’m seeing right now helpful for me?
Teach Your Algorithm What You Actually Want
Algorithms pay attention to your behaviour. That can include what you like, follow, share, save and search for, but also what you spend time watching (even if it’s just for a moment!).
Unfortunately, we sometimes give unwanted content a lot of attention.
You might watch a weight-loss video because it upsets you, read the comments on a post you disagree with or repeatedly visit an account you know makes you feel bad. To an algorithm, that engagement can look like interest.
Therefore, the first start is giving it different signals.
Use ‘Not interested’ when appearance, diet or weight-focused content appears. Scroll past unwanted videos rather than repeatedly watching them or opening their comments. Search for and engage with topics you’d genuinely like to see more often.
Think of it less as finding the ‘perfect’ algorithm and more as gradually teaching your feed that there are other things worthy of your attention (umm, hello whimsy crafts!).
Reset your Instagram and TikTok feeds
If your recommendations feel particularly stuck, you can take more direct action. Each platform has settings in the backend that you can edit in order to change what you will be shown. Here are some starting points:
Instagram allows you to reset the recommendations you see across Feed, Reels and Explore pages.
Go to your Profile → Tap the Three-Line Menu → Content Preferences → Reset Suggested Content, then follow the prompts.
You can also use ‘Not Interested’ on individual posts to let Instagram know you’d like to see less content like this.
Instagram also has ‘Specific Words and Phrases’ feature. This can also help you hide recommended posts containing particular words or phrases in captions or hashtags. So you can say goodbye to ‘SkinnyTok’, ‘Fitspo’ and ‘diet’ related content.
TikTok
TikTok also has ways to reshape your For You feed.
Go to Profile → Tap the Three-Line Menu → Settings and Privacy → Content Preferences.
From here, you can Refresh your For You feed, manage topics to adjust the types of content you’re recommended, or filter keywords to reduce content containing particular words or hashtags.
And don’t forget the ‘Not interested’. When something you’d rather not see appears, you can use this option to help TikTok learn that you’d like fewer posts like it.
Resetting your recommendations gives you a fresh start, but your algorithm will begin learning from you again. So, what you choose to engage with next is just as important!
Pro Tip: Platforms regularly update their menus and features, so the exact wording of these settings may change. Try Googling :how to edit my [PLATFORM NAME] algorithm” for specific steps if you’re stuck!
What Should You Add To Your Feed?
Reducing unhelpful content is one part of the equation. The next is deliberately making room for something else.
Try diversifying the people and bodies you see. Follow people across different body sizes, ages, cultures, abilities and gender expressions. Seeing more of the natural diversity of human bodies can help challenge the idea that there is one way we are supposed to look.
But your feed doesn’t need to become entirely about body image either.
Follow people talking about books, animals, gaming, art, gardening, comedy, sport, music, travel, craft or whatever captures your interest.
Sometimes supporting body image means thinking about your body less, rather than finding new ways to think positively about it.
Other Ways To Make Social Media Work For You
You can also change how you use social media, not just what appears there. You can:
- Mute, unfollow or block triggering accounts. You are allowed to curate your online environment around what supports you.
- Use time limits or create phone-free spaces. App timers can create a natural interruption when scrolling becomes automatic, while phone-free spaces can give you regular breaks from your feed. You might want to consider what impact the digital world is having on your wellbeing as a whole.
- Turn off unnecessary notifications. This can help you decide when you want to use social media rather than being repeatedly drawn back to it.
- Set reminders to reset or clear your feed and search history. Even if you’ve done all of the above, it can be helpful to check in occasionally and reset your feed if unwanted content starts appearing again.
- Check in with yourself. Occasionally ask, How do I feel after spending time on this app? The answer can help you decide what needs changing.
Your feed Is Yours To Shape
We can’t completely avoid cultural messages about what our bodies ‘should’ look like, and changing your algorithm won’t solve every body image concern.
But we can become more intentional about which messages we repeatedly invite into our lives.
A more supportive feed might include greater body diversity. It might involve less diet and appearance-focused content. It might help you notice when comparison is taking over. Or it might be full of things that have nothing whatsoever to do with bodies.
You don’t need to create the perfect feed or feel positively about your body every day.
Sometimes, supporting body image begins with something much simpler: making your online world a place where your appearance isn’t constantly asking for your attention.
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If you’d like to explore this further, More Than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite offers practical ways to build body image resilience and shift the focus beyond appearance. And if concerns about your body, food or social media are feeling particularly heavy, remember you don’t have to navigate them alone. The team at Peaceful Mind Psychology supports people experiencing body image and eating concerns. Reach out if you’d like to discuss how we might be able to support you.