As a personal trainer, I look towards other leaders for inspiration and ideas regarding diet and exercise. It can all be a little overwhelming at times. It’s all well-intentioned, pairing fitness and inspiration. Social media and mainstream media put fitspiration images in front of us every day. Advertising and marketing campaigns want us to aspire to these images and a belief that this is ideal.
Lose weight, look younger, be happier. Sure, these are all great aspirations, but these very images and beliefs can also be damaging and essentially be false advertising for a healthy lifestyle. It’s finally becoming more well known that these “ideals” are not helping people live a healthy lifestyle, neither physically nor mentally.
Just seeing fitspiration images can lead to feeling dissatisfied with ourselves. As the article mentions, it can promote depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. A scientific study doesn’t have to confirm that part for me. It will be to varying degrees, but I think it’s an automatic human reaction many people can relate to. It’s the way our brains are wired. We focus on what we lack in ourselves. It frustrates me when exercise becomes less about health and more about aesthetics. I understand it. I am guilty of it as well. We all want to look good in or out of our clothes.
When you look at athletes across a variety of sport in your community like amateur weight lifters, wrestlers, martial artists, shot put, bikers, the list goes on, anyone who is not paid as a professional or competing at a high level (and even those who are), these people have a variety of Healthy Body types. I’m generalizing here, but overall, these people are fit and you will see many Healthy Body types. They may likely fall into the “normal” BMI but there isn’t just one Healthy Body type.
I’m not disputing the science that says a waist circumference above 80 cm for women and 94 cm for men increases health risks. It is an important statistic that will indicate health risks. It just really bothers me when society places one Healthy Body type on a pedestal.
Striving for healthier daily choices and habits should be something we think about first.
There is my rant. I may tend to harp on the same topic. My friends can attest to that, but until fitness magazines and social consciousness changes to see there is beauty and strength in more than one Healthy Body type, it will always be on my mind.
