Interventions That Use Highly Visual Social Media Platforms to Tackle Unhealthy Body Image in Adolescents and Young Adults: Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials and Quasi-Experimental Studies

Body image management platforms offer an emerging avenue for implementing body image interventions in adolescents and young adults. While current evidence suggests modest benefits, the high heterogeneity among presentation formats and the variability in duration make comparisons between these studies difficult. This review synthesizes social media-delivered interventions for body image disturbance, going beyond broader digital approaches centered on websites or apps. It identifies cross-platform, putative mechanisms of action and common intervention formats, highlighting the potential of brief interventions for scalable reach and user empowerment via content curation. These findings define targets for optimization and underscore the need for platform safeguards and supportive policy and regulatory frameworks to enable safe real-world implementation, particularly for adolescents.