#BODY SHAPES REAL PEOPLE MEN HOW TO#

The idealization of body types on social media has an undeniable effect on adults as well, experts say. The Bulimia Project study was launched in response to the jarring impact of social media on children’s mental health, which could be a source of body image issues, according to the study.

In the age of filters on photo apps such as Snapchat and Instagram, “no one can reasonably achieve the physical standards set by social media,” the study noted. “But we can only assume that the reason AI came up with so many oddly shaped versions of the physiques it found on social media is that these platforms promote unrealistic body types to begin with.” “Considering that social media uses algorithms based on which content gets the most lingering eyes, it’s easy to guess why AI’s renderings would come out more sexualized,” the study concluded. The study compared how the social media-inspired images were much more sexualized and “unsettling,” in terms of disproportionate body parts, than the AI-inspired renderings. The results showed more diversity in skin, hair and eye color as well as ethnicity, although the images still depicted conventionally “fit” individuals. The study broadened the scope beyond social media, prompting the AI tools to generate images of “the ‘perfect’ woman in 2023” and “the ‘perfect’ man in 2023.” “The same can be said for the male physiques it generated, all of which look like photoshopped versions of bodybuilders.” The first prompt to AI - for “the ‘perfect’ female body according to social medial in 2023” - generated a variety of female body types while showing an obvious preference for slimmer women with toned muscles. “Smaller women appeared in nearly all the images created by Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, but the latter came up with the most unrealistic representations of the female body,” the study revealed. The second prompt - “the ‘perfect’ male body, according to social medial in 2023” - did the same, coming up with images of men with perfectly toned abs. The first prompt - “the ‘perfect’ female body according to social medial in 2023” - generated a variety of female body types but showed an obvious preference for slimmer women with toned muscles. The Bulimia Project extracted its results by approaching the various AI systems with two prompts.

ShutterstockĪdditionally, 47% of the images for men included facial hair. Sixty-seven percent of all images for men with the “ideal body type” included brown hair and 63% had olive skin.

More than half (53%) of all images of women generated to depict the “ideal body type” included olive skin.įor men, the AI-generated images showed a bias toward brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin. The results, produced by AI-generated imaging tools such as Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, showed widely “unrealistic” body structures, as reported in a discussion of the findings on The Bulimia Project’s website.įorty percent of the overall images depicted “unrealistic” body types of muscular men and women - 37% for women and 43% for men - according to the study.įor women, the AI-generated images seemed to have a bias toward blonde hair, brown eyes and olive-toned skin.

#BODY SHAPES REAL PEOPLE MEN HOW TO#

Warning signs of suicide: What to know about prevention, red flags and how to deal with the issueĪrtificial intelligence has its own idea of what the perfect human body should look like.Ī new study by The Bulimia Project, a Brooklyn, New York-based website that publishes content and research related to eating disorders, investigated how AI perceived the “ideal” body based on social media data. Indiana man paints massive American flag mural on roof of hardware store: ‘A lot of pride’ AI-discovered drug shows 'enormous potential' to treat schizophrenia: ‘Real need for better treatment'

Body shapes real people men