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More than meets the eye: a relational analysis of young women’s body capital and embodied understandings of health and fitness on Instagram

ABSTRACT Using an adapted version of auto-driven photo-elicitation, this paper examines how young women garner digital body capital on Instagram, with a particular focus on their embodied understandings of health and fitness. In total, nine young women (aged 20–24) enrolled in kinesiology programmes at Canadian universities participated in this research. We found their Instagram practices to be complex, paradoxical and multi-layered. We argue that this is because Instagram understandings, experiences and practices transpire within a complexity of relationships between bodies, technologies and discourses. Notwithstanding this complexity, we identified four informal ‘rules’ that govern the acquisition of body capital on Instagram. These rules include: showing the body; being vainglorious without being vainglorious; enhancing but not editing your pictures; and finally, showcasing a healthy and active lifestyle. We conclude the paper by arguing for a methodological approach to digital media, more specifically social media, that accounts for the myriad of factors that shape Instagram experiences, practices and meanings as a way of accessing the space between the digital, human and discursive.