Fitness Industry Myths - #1 Your body has to look a certain way
Fitness Industry Myths - Wellness & Fitness Wednesday Series
Fitness Industry Myth #1 – Your body has to look a certain way
If you’re already exercising or interested in getting into it, it is important to know about the fitness industry. This is because this industry’s usual first priority is about making profits and is not necessarily focused on making a positive impact on your mental health.
The fitness industry, for the sake of this article, is the confluence of three things: fitness companies; influencers; and marketing strategies designed to increase engagement with a fitness-related company’s products (usually through social media). The fitness industry generally makes a lot of money by getting people to focus on their appearance, not on whether what someone does is good for them. This looks like image-focused routines and programs that are often promoted by people who fit a very specific appearance. While some companies intentionally market using diverse sized bodies, the “ideal” of the fitness industry is a moving target that is very difficult if not impossible to get for yourself. This content often involves body checks, routines designed to enhance or diminish parts of your body (e.g. “get rid of belly fat,” “tone your arms,” “build your glutes,” “shred your abs”), and ads or partnerships with companies that sell anything from supplements to clothes to equipment.
It’s not a problem to do these kinds of exercises or programs. The problem is that they can promote a fitness industry myth: that your body has to look a certain way. This myth can be bad for your mental health. It gets you focused on attaining a particular “ideal” (e.g. “body goals” or “bikini body”) and convinces you that unless you look that way, you are somehow incomplete. It gets you focused on what you look like, rather than on who you are or how you feel inside your own body.
The truth is, the health of your body is not determined by how it looks. Your body is an instrument for living out the life that matters to you, not an ornament. Instead of focusing on how you look after each of your sessions at the gym, try to focus on how you feel on the inside after. Did you feel powerful lifting heavy today? Did you run faster than you did last time? Did dancing with your friends leave you feeling energized? Thinking about how you experienced things inside your own body is much better for your mind than focusing on your appearance.
If this topic has got you thinking, consider talking about your experience of the fitness industry (whether that’s on social media or at the gym) with a friend. Reflecting on the impact of fitness-related marketing campaigns can help you and others tell the difference between unhelpful myths and the stuff that is wholesome and helpful.
Watch for more articles on Fitness Industry Myths to be posted on Wellness Wednesdays during January 2025.
Sources:
Kite, Lexie, and Kite, Lindsay. More Than a Body. HarperCollins: 2021.
Resources for reflection:
- Beauty Redefined (Lxie and Lindsay Kite) - https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca5aa-gLsJt/?hl=en
- Sohee Carpenter has some great stuff on this: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5tdXnZPA7M/?hl=en
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