The mirage of Fitspo health
Students across the country struggle with body image, you are not alone
Audrey Garrett / Asst. Art Director / The USD Vista
Striving for a fit body in 2019? Afraid you’ll gain the Freshman 15? Beware of the power of #fitspiration. It can warp your sense of self-worth, what you value in others, and your health. I know from experience. And, I’m not alone.
It took one photo to ignite my motivation to “get fit” and many months to recover from my eating disorder. A big culprit? Fitspo: the adoration of fit men and women, their lifestyle, their bodies, and their strict regiments of exercise and healthy eating. #Fitspo has bombarded social media through filtered beach bods, big booties, and gym shark brand models all emphasizing the expectation of men to have muscles like Dwayne the Rock and gals to have the figure of Kayla Itsines and a booty like Kim K.
Many in our generation grew up with the fears of obesity and fast food. Now, mixed with the current influence of social media and a surge of visual comparisons, many of us have latched on to the motivating cultural message to become fit. We all want to be healthier, live longer, be happier. All of those are seemingly synonymous with being active and in shape. Having the ability to move and be active has proven to relieve stress and prevent depression as exercise releases endorphins and a hefty amount of dopamine. Being active is a good thing. The only problem: society equates fitness with the overall worth of a human. All of the nutrition ads, before and after photos, and body conforming pressures on social media provide the perfect storm for poor mental health as we all ride the fear-based train to unachievable physical perfection.
#SoWhat?
There was a time when I equated self-worth with physical ability. I ranked others by their athletic ability, appearance, and nutritional habits. Just like nutrition labels, friend, family, and strangers became numbers, filtered by how they used their bodies and how their bodies appear; perfectly dismissing each relationship’s meaningful qualities of friendship, kindness, and compatibility. Why? Was I a narcissistic, judgemental animal? Craving any system to rate and judge others? Maybe, a little. But now, after months of self-reflection and physical recovery, I think I was just being human. I was just responding, adapting really. I was listening, seeing, and consuming what was around me, especially on social media. And what was around me were photos, conversations, ads, YouTube videos, and one-size stores all legitimizing the same message: your worth is in your image. Fitspiration gave me the perfect criteria of how to go about accessing image. Through Instagram calorie accounts I judged the worth of food down to a T. I internalized my dos and don’ts of exercise and gym workouts thanks to my many fit YouTube subscriptions and got my daily dose of body image perfection from VSCO and its more universal older sibling, Pinterest. It was all coming together, how to have the perfect diet, the perfect gym routine, and the perfect body. It is an initial high to find and be able to apply ideal habits to your own life. You get a sense of achievement and accomplishment and ever so gradually a higher perception of yourself in comparison to others. When you complete a full, high-intensity workout all before your friends have had their morning coffee you can’t help but feel accomplished. Top that with the misconceived ideals of nutrition and suddenly you’re crediting yourself for having a vastly more “nutritious” breakfast then your peers; and from what you’ve learned, if you’re more nutritious, you’re probably better in general.
It is mostly through the media, including #fitspo, that we are constantly reminded that we’re probably not doing enough to stay fit. We might as well be on another planet titled “perfection” and “regret your life now.” This online mentality bleeds into offline interactions habits, and thoughts. Photo comparisons become defaults in our brains. Are those in front of me living, breathing complex humans? Or, are they simply another visual I must compare myself with to maintain likability?
The Perfect Storm – Freshman Year
As we start college, how can we navigate this get-fit pressure in a healthy way? I am not the only one who has fallen victim to the fitness social media burden. Many are voicing their struggles on news outlets, blogs, and personal media accounts. In 2017 The Huffington Post reported on “Why ‘Fitspo’ Should Come with a Warning Label.” The report describes the experiences of 20-year-old females plummeting into the quicksand of body comparison, nutritional elitism, and avocado toast. Men are also suffering. According to a 2017 study by Australian researchers, fitspiration imagery features men nearly as often as it features women, and men’s bodies are just as likely to be objectified. The study found female #fitspo typically adhering to a thin body ideals, while the males adhered to a muscular image. The same study found a direct correlation between negative mood and body-dissatisfaction and fitspiration exposure, especially posts depicting ideal athletic female bodies. The study also found men’s body dissatisfaction to increase after exposure to ideal muscle images and an increase in depression and fitness level dissatisfaction after exposure to male models actively engaging in sports.
We are all susceptible to media influence, especially when it fuels our fears and insecurities. I’d like to pass on some hard-earned advice, as I would to a friend: you are not defined by your body. You are not constrained to your social media account. In a world where it may seem like the visuals of life are the entirety of living, it is important to remember you are just a human mind, heart, and body, in that order. So, this new year, challenge yourself to work out your mind, activate your comedy, broaden your palate of creativity. Live for yourself and not for an expectation of what you should be. Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something creative. Fitspiration can create a mockery of this gift.
Skip the Calorie Counting and Acknowledge Your Social Media Intake Instead
How many hours do you spend on social media? And how often are you looking at accounts, not of your family or friends, but of media “Influencers” or those with enough followers to populate a small country? I love Bella Hadid as much as the next Torero but constant exposure to anything not rooted in reality is bad for the soul. Like us, even they don’t live the life they present online. We already know this, at some level, but production is so convincing, and the images are so enticing. Acknowledge your intake. Count how many unstable personas you follow and how much attention you give them. See if it makes a difference if you temporarily unfollow them or take a vacation from all online lives in general. Maybe just for a day, or maybe a weekend. Challenge yourself and see what changes come with a life unfiltered.
Change Your Motivation
If your motivation to exercise and eat certain foods is to achieve a certain body type, I’m gonna stop you right there. Gym trainers who take on clients will usually drop or redirect clients whose sole motivation is to change their body to look a certain way or to please someone else. Goals should be made for you, not for others. So, work out to show yourself what your body can do, run a faster mile or prove doing the splits or push ups or deadlifts or handstands are not out of your reach. Motivate yourself through your body’s abilities, not your insecurities, looks, or social media image.
Stop the Cycle
We all deal with pressure differently. San Diego is a city filled with fit beach bodies and hyper-physique consciousness. There is pressures to conform. If you see someone stuck in a destructive mentality around fitness, exercise or nutrition, reach out. There is never any harm done to asking how someone is doing or checking in with them if you notice a possible unhealthy habit. When it comes to a person’s physical health, the fear of awkward moments should take a back seat. The pressure to escape the “Freshman 15” and maintain a certain physique plagues a lot of us at USD. We should acknowledge and talk about it to prevent further psychological damage, stress, anxiety, or depression over feeling inadequate. Reach out to others on campus talk about the pressure and relieve yourself and one another from the weight of fitspo. Need help? Call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.