What I Would Have Done: The Fitness Community Needs an Intervention

 Thanks to a wacky few weeks, I had to settle for the concept version of the Online Communities assignment.  If I did have the chance to do the full version, I would have spent time capitalizing my decade of time wading into the fitness and bodybuilding communities.  I have been obese since the summer after I turned 6 years old and have been under some sort of pressure to be fit.


My desire to be fit was under tension: be slim and sporty like my cousins (and my father in my youth) or aspire to be as big as the bodybuilders in the grocery store magazines.  Option 1 is what led me to several phases of movement: infrequent gym engagement, on-demand dance videos, the BeachBody movement (P90X and Insanity), yoga, running.  It wasn't until I moved down to South Florida that Option 2 came back into my life.  

Through it all...I have been using social media to get a look into the spectrum of fitness in Western society.    Short answer: fitness around here needs an intervention.  We get bombarded with tons of unhealthy images, but something tagged with fitness should be positive.  It isn't:

1) Fitness might be the death of expertise.

James Linker, posting as Shredded Sports Science, presents a great cross-section of fitness social media with a proper lampooning of the ridiculous standards and claims intertwined with science-based facts.  The video below is an example of how terrible it can get: the use of elite bodies to sell products that have nothing to do with their physiques is warping the image of fitness across generations.



2) Everyone is on drugs.  Everyone.

Don't take my word for it.  There are scandals on top of scandals throughout every elite sport of performance-enhancing drug use.  It's so pervasive many fitness influencers don't hide it until they enter a competition!  As a 90s kid, a movie like Bigger Stronger Faster* felt like a betrayal.  The core truth: a majority of what we consider exceptional sports performance has been at the aid of something more than just training and eating right.  For individuals like me, we have to ask ourselves the question: what's acceptable to you in your fitness journey?  The easy way can seem really tempting:


 3) Health is expensive and can be deadly.

The two biggest lessons I've learned watching this industry pass by, whether it's in the gym or on platform, is that there is a cost to getting to a top physique.  The actual cash is real: the ability to eat, train, sleep, and get advice to get an impressive physique represents a mountain of wealth and privilege.  Many influencers will admit to broken relationships (there's a trope forming of young gym enthusiasts breaking up with their first girlfriend to fuel their training), missed family moments, and lonely seasons.  Worst, the trend is the elite bodybuilder dying.  

John Meadows is an example of one of the "good guys" who tried to manage his physique with health and longevity in mind and still died early.  Derek (known as More Plates More Dates) presents a quality (and kinda sweary) tribute:


One principle he and other transparent bodybuilding influencers has been clear on: bodybuilding, whether naturally or enhanced, can shorten lives simply by the tax on the organs.  This is part of the maelstrom the fat loss supplements, exercise routines, diet foods, and get-fit-now-schemes.  That person you look up to could be 100% right about how to guide you and still die early.  What prevents me from spiraling into nihilistic despair and still dreaming of a six pack is the quality of life.  Just like my post on Instagram I want it all.  The efforts and the journey to get there are as valuable as the destination.  It's not just losing a couple pounds before seeing judgment relatives on summer vacation.  I want to move better, do more, and love harder and do it for more years than I can in an obese body.  Some things can be worth the risk...some things aren't.

If the goal is to make people healthier, the fitness community online is failing.  They need an intervention over there...but it will need a sponsor first.


Comments

  1. The WeaveJune 20, 2022 at 11:19 AM

    Wow - thank you for being so honest about your journey. I can relate to a lot of what you were talking about, especially as a kid. I couldn't agree more about the online fitness community. Shoot, the real life fitness community. I was at a gathering a month or so ago and someone was there who was a trainer at one of those group workout places that rhymes with smorange hear ye. Anywho, I mentioned that I do water aerobics several times a week, and this cat rolled his eyes. ROLLED HIS EYES. I about lost it, but my friend took over (she's a coach at an elementary school). She was like, how dare you roll your eyes! Aren't you a coach? Shouldn't you be supporting ANY activity one chooses? He was thrown off for sure.....and I was like, %$&@ that guy. Interventions all around, I say!
    Over the last year, I have committed myself to being HEALTHIER. I am working on what that looks like for me, because I have accepted that I will never be super thin, and I am ok with that because I do not want to give up my wine, or my nachos. I want to be able to enjoy things without beating myself up, AND accepting my body the way it is, now, twenty pounds from now, etc. It's struggle, even with this new mindset of forgiveness and grace. I fall into negative self-talk sometimes, but it's less frequent.
    I say all of this to say - keep going, keep doing things that make you feel good, and be proud of each step you take on your journey. Thanks for a great blog post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. LeelocinJune 20, 2022 at 1:47 PM

    Excellent post JCL, thank you for sharing about your journey. It's inspiring that you're doing so much research and critical thinking about the way 'health' and fitness is portrayed on social media...
    I remember coming across this 'placebo effect' concept in another class during the ISLT coursework, I can't recall which class it was but... I googled and found this article:

    https://www.npr.org/2008/01/03/17792517/hotel-maids-challenge-the-placebo-effect#:~:text=Hotel%20Maids%20Challenge%20the%20Placebo%20Effect%20A%20study%20of%20hotel,workouts%2C%20the%20pounds%20started%20dropping.

    Essentially, it's about housekeepers moving around and cleaning on a daily basis, FT jobs... they were surveyed and asked if they thought they were doing physical exercise while moving around all day, some did/some didnt... but then they told them that they were exercising, the ones they told that they were actually exercising while working ended up losing weight in the upcoming data collection points!

    Covid-remote-life has me burning a lot of calories in my fingers... the more I type, the more I lose... right!?!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kyle RoarkJune 26, 2022 at 1:52 PM

    Wow, this was really eye opening JCL. Thank you. You are 100% spot on that much of the culture around fitness in the United States is not about being healthy but instead about the attempt to meet an impossible ideal. I am glad to hear that you have found something that works well for you that you can both enjoy and use to stay healthy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marisa BlackJune 26, 2022 at 4:01 PM

    What a thoughtful and inspiring post. As I was reading, all I could think about was my commitment to becoming healthier this past couple of weeks after becoming really sick for the first time. The majority of our illnesses are linked to what we consume. The problem is... people are consuming without thinking about what works best for them! (I'm talking about the consumption of anything, food, social media, tv, etc.) There are hundreds of people ready to give you advice, how can we possibly know that what we're doing is right? Maybe it's about listening to our bodies more? Or canceling out the noise of social media trends and suggestions.

    I'm not sure, I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

    Thanks for this!

    ReplyDelete

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