Brief Mindfulness Meditation Protects Chinese Young Women’s Body Image from Appearance-Focused Social Media Exposure: An Online Randomized Controlled Trial

<b>Objectives</b>: Exposure to appearance-focused social media often leads to body image disturbance among young women. One promising intervention to lessen this negative impact is mindfulness meditation. This study aimed to determine whether a brief mindfulness meditation intervention could mitigate the adverse effects of exposure to appearance-focused social media content on body image and mood in young Chinese women. <b>Methods</b>: In an online randomized controlled trial, 168 women aged 18-35 years were randomly assigned to either an intervention group (<i>n</i> = 86) that listened to a ten-minute mindfulness meditation audio or to a control group (<i>n</i> = 82) that listened to a ten-minute recorded natural history text. After listening to the audio, participants viewed idealized body images on Xiaohongshu and compared themselves to these images. Outcome measures included state body dissatisfaction and negative mood. Data were collected at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1), and post-exposure to images (T2). <b>Results</b>: At T0, groups did not differ in age, BMI, education, body dissatisfaction, or negative mood (all <i>p</i> > 0.05). From T0 to T1, both groups showed significant improvements in body dissatisfaction and mood. The intervention group's scores decreased significantly (<i>p</i> = 0.008; <i>p</i> < 0.01), and the control group also showed significant improvements on both outcome measures (both <i>p</i> < 0.001). However, when exposed to the idealized images, only the intervention group maintained its improvements, with no significant change in body dissatisfaction or mood (<i>p</i> = 0.178 and <i>p</i> = 0.310, respectively) from T1 to T2, whereas the control group's scores worsened significantly on both outcome measures (<i>p</i> < 0.001 for both). <b>Conclusions</b>: These findings suggest that even a brief mindfulness meditation intervention may buffer against the negative effects of idealized social media content on body image and mood.