Welcome to the Body and Media Lab
The Body and Media Lab (BAM Lab) examines how media imagery and beauty culture shape women’s experiences with their bodies. Our recent work explores how social media use influences body image, how different audiences respond to body‑positivity messages, the complicated relationship between fitness spaces and body image, negative body talk, reactions to media portrayals of women, and the effects of body‑size bias.
The lab is directed by Renee Engeln, PhD, associate director of Northwestern’s Institute for Adolescent Mental Health and Well‑Being. She is an award‑winning professor of psychology at Northwestern University and the author of Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women. Her research has been published in numerous academic journals and presented at conferences nationwide. She frequently speaks to organizations across the country and is regularly featured in national media outlets. Her TEDx talk at the University of Connecticut has been viewed more than 800,000 times. She writes about psychological research on gender, beauty, and body image for Psychology Today.
