Social Media & Body Positivity
Almost every aspect of our lives is now, in some way, reflected on social media, right down to what we eat and how we exercise. Youtube contains thousands of wonderful workout videos that can be done with no equipment, at home while Facebook and Instagram give a platform to numerous chefs and fitness coaches who share diet and exercise tips. So, Social Media is clearly a very accessible and useful tool for those looking for inspiration to change their diet or incorporate more exercise into their daily lives. But the question is, at what point does this online fitspo culture go too far?
#fitspo has, at the time of writing, 70.5 million photos attached to it. The photos with the highest level of engagement are mainly women in workout clothes, showing off their toned physiques in the gym. The Tiggeman Scientific Journal on body image argues that people exposed to these types of photographs and fitness accounts were more likely to have issues with their weight, aggravated by the time spent online. As I mentioned in my previous post, comparison is the inherent nature of instagram. You try to make your life look good, and model your posts on successful influencers, purporting an unrealistic standard of beauty. This usually leaves people feeling insufficient.
Many of the fitness related photos are before and after pictures of clients or users that have followed the programme marketed by the influencer. The fitspo accounts are obviously posting multiple photos of themselves as well as before and afters to sell their ideas and gain a following. They aren’t posting pictures in bad lighting or when they look bloated, as that’s clearly not part of the business plan. They are posting pictures of an ideal that most of us aspire to, under the guise that their advice can make us all look like the image. Frequently seeing these photographs and comparing ourselves to them can lead to destructive behaviours since most of us cannot compare to these people. Additionally, for those that did follow the programme, seeing before and after pictures can be disheartening when they don’t feel they achieved the same results.
With all the information that exists out there, it can be difficult to determine what is truly factual and worthy of taking inspiration from. After all, we don’t actually know if a certain influencer account is in any way qualified to give advice, especially when it comes to our diets. This means we can be following a diet programme that we found on Instagram, under the premise that it is good and will lead to health benefits, when it could actually be encouraging destructive habits. We can’t just start cutting calories and exercising more without being knowledgeable about nutrition and how we are fueling our bodies. Everybody’s needs are different when it comes to diet and exercise and so generic advice can do more harm than good to some of us.
Additionally, influencers often have more resources than the average person. They are gifted things to promote and often earn a significant amount of money from their influencer business. This affords them better resources than most of us may have. For example, a mom of 3 with a husband that works long hours cannot possibly exercise as much as many of these influencers. So the ideals created by these accounts can often be unrealistic and lead to disappointment and feelings of failure when they can’t be met. We are all different and look different, comparing ourselves only leads to damaging thoughts and habits and is exactly why we should proceed with caution when viewing fitness social media accounts.