AI models appearing across social media and advertising are raising concerns among experts and advocates about their potential impact on young people’s body image.
Cardiff University Student Warns of AI Beauty Standards
Mia Perumal, a 19-year-old Cardiff University student who has recovered from an eating disorder, said she worries the technology will make unrealistic beauty standards even harder for young people to escape. At age 12, Perumal was fed harmful content via social media algorithms, and she now fears the rise of AI models is magnifying that damage. Over the past year, she has noticed an increase in very thin AI-generated figures on social media, often accompanied by comments from 12-year-old girls asking for workout routines to achieve a similar look. Perumal stated that looking like AI models is completely unobtainable and called for AI content to be controlled, noting that eating disorders do not listen to rationality. She also pointed out that AI-generated videos and photos are getting harder to spot.
Marketing Freelancer Fears for 11-Year-Old Son
Kelly Watts, a 41-year-old marketing freelancer, expressed concern that her 11-year-old son Oscar will compare his body to fake photographs of perfect people. Watts sees AI business images everywhere in her work, frequently without tags to indicate whether they are real or fake. While Oscar watches YouTube and does not yet have social media, Watts fears AI has infiltrated video content alongside traditional influences like footballers with six-packs. Watts emphasized the need for AI-literacy, questioning why people would want to compare themselves to a robot instead of a human. In the early 2000s, Watts was worried about the way she looked as a teenager and constantly compared herself to people around her and models in magazines. She noted that at first she did not realize images were AI, but the more you see it, the more you cannot unsee it, and she now sees it on quite a regular basis. While her son Oscar loves playing rugby and has not raised concerns about his body, he is becoming more aware that some friends are taller. Watts added that no one and nothing is perfect, she does not want him growing up thinking he has to be perfect, and she feels she is the last person he is going to listen to over a big influencer even if that influencer is AI.
Phillippa Diedrichs, a professor of psychology at the Centre for Appearance Research at UWE Bristol, explained that human beings have a natural tendency to compare themselves to others. Diedrichs noted that when people compare themselves to narrowly defined beauty standards found in digitally constructed images that do not exist in biological reality, falling short can lead to self-doubt and negative feelings about their appearance.
Researchers Track Consumer Backlash Against Virtual Models
Zoe Lee and Hannah Marriott, researchers at Cardiff Business School, found that AI-generated fashion models and digital twins are becoming more common among brands such as Balmain, Levi’s, and H&M. However, their research indicates that consumers often react negatively to AI models once they realize they are not real. Focus group participants told the researchers they would rather have real people representing them, arguing that AI models can never reflect lived experience. H&M confirmed it worked with real models in 2025 to create digital twins who retained full control of their likeness, though that exploration was paused during the spring of 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI Models and Body Image
What brands have experimented with virtual models?
Cardiff Business School researchers Zoe Lee and Hannah Marriott identified brands including Balmain, Levi’s, and H&M as having experimented with AI-generated fashion models and digital twins.
What specific action did H&M take regarding digital twins?
H&M worked with real models in 2025 to create digital representations where the models retained full control and ownership of their digital twins, but paused the exploration during the spring of 2025.