Young women who spend a lot of time on Facebook may have a more negative body image than their peers, a new study has found.

According to UK and US researchers, the way that women are portrayed in the media, particularly models and actresses, has always been scrutinised. Many have claimed that the media promotes an unattainable body image, which may affect the body image of some people viewing these images.

However, the researchers set out to see what effect social media could have on women's body image. They surveyed almost 900 female college students about their diet and exercise habits, body image and use of Facebook.

They found that women who used Facebook a lot often felt negatively about their bodies after looking at someone else's posts or photos. They often ended up comparing their body to the body of their Facebook friends.

The study also found that the more time young women spent on Facebook, the more likely they were to compare themselves to their friends and the more likely they were to have negative feelings.

The researchers noted that if women wanted to lose weight and spent a lot of time on Facebook, they tended to pay more attention to issues surrounding physical appearance, including body and clothes.

This is the first study to find a link between the time spent on Facebook and negative body image.

"Public health professionals who work in the area of eating disorders and their prevention now have clear evidence of how social media relates to college women's body image and eating disorders. While time spent on Facebook had no relation to eating disorders, it did predict worse body image among participants," noted Dr Petya Eckler of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

She emphasised that poor body image ‘can gradually lead to developing an unhealthy relationship with food'.

"The attention to physical attributes may be even more dangerous on social media than on traditional media because participants in social media are people we know. These comparisons are much more relevant and hit closer to home. Yet they may be just as unrealistic as the images we see on traditional media," she added.

Details of these findings were presented at the 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association in Seattle, Washington.