Will AI models become the next big threat to young people's body image?
Author, Rowenna Hoskin
Role, BBC Wales
Published 9 minutes ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
Artificial intelligence (AI) models are increasingly common in social media and advertising, but what impact might this have on people's body image?
Mia Perumal, who suffered from an eating disorder, told the BBC she was worried the technology could make it harder for young people to break free from unrealistic beauty standards.
The 19-year-old Cardiff University student said she believed if she had been exposed to artificial intelligence while she was suffering from an eating disorder, it would have had "terrible effects".
She also believes that AI-generated videos and photos are becoming increasingly difficult to identify.
Warning: This article contains content about eating disorders and self-harm.
Mia said that when she was 12 years old, social media algorithms pushed harmful content to her.
Now she worries that the rise of artificial intelligence models will exacerbate harm to other young people.
In the past year, Mia has noticed that a large number of AI beauties with very slim figures have appeared on social media. The commenters are usually 12-year-old girls. They say: "Dream body, share your fitness plan, because I also want to have such a body."
She said she found this "really sad" because it's completely impossible to have a realistic look like an AI model.
She believes the only way to prevent harm caused by artificial intelligence is to regulate it.
"It's nice to say, 'Oh, this is artificial intelligence, it's not real,' but eating disorders don't listen to rational explanations," Mia said.
She wants young people to "be cautious and question everything".
Another British woman, Kelly Watts, said that in the early 2000s, like most teenagers, she worried about her appearance and constantly compared herself to the people around her and the models in magazines.
The 41-year-old fears her 11-year-old son will compare his figure to fake photos of "perfect people".
As a freelance marketer, Kelly found that AI was everywhere in commercial imagery, but often without labels, which meant it was difficult to tell whether it was real or fake.
"At first I didn't realize they were artificial intelligence, but the more I saw them, the more I couldn't ignore them. Now, I see them all the time," she explains.
She said her son Oscar loved playing rugby and was increasingly aware that "some of his friends were taller than him".
Although her son himself has not expressed concerns about his body shape, the mother is concerned that her children may idolize artificial intelligence-created characters online.
Kelly's 11-year-old son watches the Internet and YouTube, but does not yet have a social media account. But that doesn’t keep him away from artificial intelligence, which she worries has seeped into YouTube content.
She said watching football players with six-packs already has an impact on body image, let alone looking at artificially generated, unrealistic characters.
"Especially with kids, people wonder: Can they get to that point?"
"It puts a lot of pressure on them, and they don't need it," she said.
She also emphasized, "No one is perfect and nothing is perfect. I don't want him to grow up thinking he has to be perfect."
"I am his mother, and he is least likely to listen to me. He would rather listen to a big Internet celebrity!" She emphasized that even if that Internet celebrity is artificial intelligence.
Kelly said that AI artificial intelligence literacy is very important, and it is crucial to be able to distinguish between true and false.
“When do we need to be aware of the potential harm AI can cause to us and our children, and should AI be more clearly labeled?”
"Why do we compare ourselves to robots instead of humans?"
"As humans, we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others," says Prof Phillippa Diedrichs, professor of psychology at the Center for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) in the UK.
"If we compare ourselves to very narrow standards of beauty, which is very often the case, then the beauty ideals we have become very narrowly defined," she said.
"This inevitably means that many of us will not be able to live up to these aesthetic ideals."
“This is especially true of social media and digitally constructed images because they simply don’t exist in biological reality,” she says.
"We always compare ourselves to others, and when we're not as good as others, it makes us doubt ourselves and create negative emotions about our appearance," she explains.
She said that if artificial intelligence is used to create more diversity and inclusion, then "when we compare ourselves to each other, we will feel similar, which may have a neutral or positive impact on our happiness".
Professor Diedrichs added that unless designers guide artificial intelligence to display real or diverse features, "otherwise it will give you an image that is preset to fit an average data set of 'narrow' traditional aesthetic standards."
"For example, people of color, gender, or queer people, and people with unique and interesting facial features will be excluded," she explained.
"You can compensate for that by the way you direct and create these images. But if you don't, you end up with very generic images that tend to reinforce a lot of the biases that exist in our society."
She explained that if not careful or well thought out, this could lead to more unrealistic beauty standards "because the AI will default to the average of whatever standards it has learned."
How to identify artificial intelligence models?
Professor Diedrichs said there were "tells" that could be used to tell, such as "the texture of the skin or eyes" and the appearance of "curly hair".
The absence of blemishes or pores is a good way to identify artificial intelligence, but the technology is constantly improving, she added.
Teenagers may be affected, Diederichs said, but they also tend to be "critical and aware and understand technology better than adults."
"But the thing is, we may be aware that these things are happening, but that doesn't necessarily stop us from wanting to look like those photos," she said.
She added that she recommends asking yourself, "Does the image or ad serve you well? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel inspired and energized?"
"If it makes you feel like you're missing something, that's a really important sign to pay attention to, and it's a sign that maybe I shouldn't be paying attention to this."
She explained that AI models in advertising could allow small brands to have a large number of different models, or global brands to run ads in multiple markets.
"Diversity may bring these benefits," she told the BBC.
However, she also pointed out that this would have a "knock-on effect" on the creative industries and workers. "I never want to see AI completely replace human artistic talent and creativity.
"As consumers, you also have a lot of power to express your opinions in the comment section," she said.
"Brands will see it."
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Respondents also believed that AI models could never reflect lived experience.
The researchers found that once people discovered the images were generated by artificial intelligence, they became "emotionally disengaged" from the images.
Fashion brand H&M told the BBC that in 2025, the brand collaborated with real models to create "digital models/twins of the models."
The models "retain full control and ownership of their digital twins."
However, "this exploratory work was paused in the spring of 2025" to consider next steps.
We've reached out to Balmain, Levi's, TikTok, Meta and Google for comment.
If you or someone you know is affected by the issues described in this article, you can get information about available help and support through the BBC Action Line.
