**2. Background**

College-aged women may be at particular risk for body dissatisfaction and disordered eating practices due to the unhealthy weight gain that often occurs during this life stage [3,31]. The promotion of beauty ideals in the media disseminates disordered eating [40,41], drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction among female college students [42]. Furthermore, the growth of social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook or Instagram, has also increased the exposure to thin and fit ideals [2,43,44]. The social media are more used than any other media as a mean of communication. These internet-based sites pulled the users to create personal profiles and share, view, comment and 'like' peer-generated content [20].

Importantly, young people, almost 90% of them (ages 18–29), reported being active users and being continuously exposed to di fferent content and images in this medium [14,45]. Among the most active users of these media stands out the influencers. These new media role models have a significant impact in the last tendencies, the news and the trends that young people are following [46]. In this sense, researchers have also pointed out how social media and influencers may have the key to decrease body dissatisfaction and body concerns. Nevertheless, substantial studies have shown that economic interests are linked with the promotion of dieting in social media, or even surgery [47].

The last publications concluded that the most dangerous social media was Instagram, followed by Facebook and Twitter. These conclusions were based on the instant satisfaction of reviewing and having peer views in the images posted by the users [48]. Especially on Instagram, the message is accommodated according to the image uploaded [47].

These studies concluded that the influence of the advertising and the promotion of the thin and muscular ideals might more be connected with the perception that young people has regarding body, dieting and social media [49]. Additionally, the objectification suggests that the media's sexual objectification of women modifies their body appearance. Due to this, it could be concluded that self-perception slowly shapes attractiveness resulting in a modification in the body-image, body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitude. That being said, the proposed hypotheses are as follows:

**Hypothesis 1 (H1).** *Among young women, self-image will be linked to body dissatisfaction, the thin-ideal and the desire to change one's body shape.*

**Hypothesis 2 (H2).** *The level of body dissatisfaction among female college students will be high and be linked to self-esteem.*

**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *The young women's eating behaviours will be linked to the degree of body dissatisfaction and the frequency of using social media.*

**Hypothesis 4 (H4).** *The young women's body image and body description will be slightly connected to prenatal testosterone levels.*
