A while ago, when our social media feeds started to fill up with pictures with hashtags such as “fit is the new skinny”, we were excited. Finally the world saw that the only way to be beautiful wasn’t to be as thin as possible and the image of the ideal woman started to change rapidly. Fitness stars replaced Victoria’s Secret angels and size zero Hollywood stars as role models. Skipping breakfast and having only a salad for lunch wasn’t cool anymore as it was now all about protein, good fats and just the right amount of healthy carbs. Instead of stating confidently that walking in heels was all the exercise you needed, everyone were suddenly signing up for gym memberships and tracking carefully if they could lift bigger weights this week than last. For a while, it seemed that the fitness hype was making young women healthier and happier. But was it really? Here are five reasons why the fitness craze might not be such a good thing, after all.
- It doesn’t take away the pressure to be skinny. Have you ever seen a girl with soft curves being someone’s fitness-inspiration? When we say that we now want to be “fit” instead of “skinny” we mean that we want our muscles, not only our bones, to show. But to get muscles that can be seen without a magnifying glass, we also need to have a low body fat percentage. In other words, we now have to be fit and skinny. One idealized form has simply changed into another – one that is even harder to achieve.
- It promotes unrealistic body image as normal. Not only is a body with lots of visible muscles and almost no fat very difficult to achieve, it is even harder to do so while maintaining feminine curves. Still, the ideal look in women’s fitness competitions is muscular but also feminine which has led many competitors to go through breast enhancement surgery.
- It encourages you to compare yourself with others and to compete with them. At the same time that being fit became the new ideal, fitness competitions became hugely popular. The number of competitors has multiplied and more and more girls dream about getting on stage, even if they don’t have any kind of training background. Nowadays it almost seems like women who train regularly but don’t have any competing dreams are becoming a rarity. However, constantly standing in front of the mirror, comparing yourself to women in skimpy bikinis on stage can lead to lowered self-esteem and may cloud your judgment on your appearance and what you “should” look like. The shape in which fitness athletes are on stage is temporary and lasts only that one day. Moreover, to achieve that physique, many competitors have had to turn to unhealthy tricks, such as limiting water intake to a minimum. It is impossible to stay in that shape for long and when that becomes the ideal body, it can seriously damage women’s self-esteem.
- It encourages girls to train too much and eat too little. The stage physique can be achieved healthily when you work towards it slowly and steadily. But when girls with no gym background want to compete in only a year’s time, problems are bound to emerge. To make matters worse, there are personal trainers out there with no official license who can give you dubious advice on how to achieve the physique you want as soon as possible. Overtraining while limiting your calories at the same time can lead to serious health problems, such as thyroid insufficiency.
- It makes having an eating disorder look healthy. Compulsive training, being extremely strict with your diet and idealizing a body with a fat percentage close to zero does not differ a lot from having anorexia. Fitness lifestyle, especially if you aim to compete, demands extreme discipline and control. When you are on a diet, in some cases for over six months at a time, where you have to weigh every little thing that you put in your mouth, eat basically the same food day after day and carry your own packed lunch (and snacks and dinner) everywhere to make sure that you get the right food at the right time, life can get restricted. Some people start going out and socializing less often since it can be hard to always turn down food and alcohol, and going out on a dinner with friends is difficult when you’re on a strict diet. Also, trying to juggle social life with studies or work and often two training sessions per day can get difficult, and staying out late with friends doesn’t go well together with an early morning run.
Some people may also find it hard to stop dieting and see themselves gaining weight after the competitions, while some people feel like eating for the whole six months they’ve been on a diet. While being on a constant diet is unhealthy, so is yo-yo dieting and gaining, in some cases, dozens of pounds in just weeks after the competition. Losing and gaining weight for years can cause you long-term health problems and affect your self-esteem negatively.
With all that being said, fitness as a lifestyle and even fitness competitions are not all bad. If you do them the healthy way, making sure you listen to your body, eat enough, train moderately and can still enjoy your social life, it can make you healthier, happier and, of course, give you that amazing bikini body. As long as your only motivation for doing it isn’t that you feel pressured by the media.