Fitspiration: Helpful or Harmful?

Hot girl jogging, woman knotting new Nikes, an ab selfie – you’ve surely seen a collection of pictures and advertisements being coined ‘Fitspiration’ or ‘Fitspo.’ The hashtag “fitspo” had over 18 million hits on Instagram. You can just see a photo and suddenly feel empowered to go on a run. When your motivation to work out is down this will bring it up, and now you’ll be ready to power through your gym session! Right? Well, maybe not; at least if you’re anything like me.

I feel like every single fitspo picture has one clear message: “This could be you.” Many times that is the actual caption of the photo. But guess what? That’s not true! Human beings are built differently. If you have widely set hips, your bones aren’t going to shrink to match the model in the photo. Nor are your boobs going to grow. Nor is my Irish skin going to turn a golden brown if I work out outside. I go to the beach all summer, but my skin doesn’t turn that color. This message angers me for two reasons. One: every body is different. No exercise routine can make you look like another person. You’re going to look like you, a healthier and leaner you, but still you. Not the girl in the photo. Two: why should I want that to be me? Of course I encourage exercise and eating right, but I don’t think the premise of an advertisement should be making you unhappy with who you currently are. You can look ahead to the future without being unhappy with the present. Be happy in the now, and work out to be even happier in the future. Don’t work out because you’re upset that you don’t look like the girls in advertisements. No one else can be proud of being you but you. You should be getting fit because you want to! 

There are a couple of other fitspo themes I question. For one, half of the pictures I see are girls in lingerie or underwear. Why? Why are you in your underwear? Aren’t you supposed to be working out or telling me to? You surely aren’t telling me to run outside in my underwear, so why are you in yours? Okay, I’m being facetious. The reason girls are sometimes posed this way is to make them look sexy and imply that you can feel sexy if you work out. But again, this makes us feel as if we aren’t sexy as we are. I’d rather be told the health benefits of working out than look at a girl in her underwear. If I’m feeling good about myself, just the way I am, then I will parade around my room in my underwear blasting music!

Another theme is the messages put with the photos, not subliminal messages but what is captioned. One that came up a lot when I searched for fitspo was “Do you want to be fit or jealous?” Really? Okay, so my only two options are being extremely fit or just miserable about the fact that I’m not. Yeah, sorry but I’m not okay with that. Again, don’t encourage me by bringing me down first. There are many good messages, like the one pictured above. But if you scroll through images in general, you’re going to find more than one message focusing on jealousy and comparison. Your workout should be about you, not about being jealous of people who have more time to work out than you do. 

An issue that I also notice was that everybody shown in fitspo is very similar. Dramatically shaped abs, where it looks like blocks are coming out the girl’s flat stomach, big boobs, a huge butt (yes, squats will put more behind you, but I’m talking about Nicki Minaj status), and tanned skin. Healthy has no definition! Yes, the girls in the photos are fit, but they’re only one image of what fit can look like. You can have a size 8 who works out regularly, or a 300 lb person down from 400 lbs who is therefore fit by personal standards. These models don’t encompass all that “fit” looks like. Fitness looks different on every person, and you should be every bit as proud of the fit version of your body as the model is of her fit body.

Basically, I encourage working out. It relieves stress. It’s healthy. In many cases, it makes you happier, because you’re proud of yourself and it releases endorphins. But I wouldn’t use fitspo as motivation. Or, if you want to, I would find empowering accounts instead of broadly searching social media or the Internet.

Make your motivation be making yourself better. Your body is unique; it’s not the one in the photos, but that’s more than okay. You get to see your own “before” and “after,” and that’s a great feeling.

Image Credit: 1, 2, 3, 4

• body
• fitness
• fitspiration
• fitspo
• health
• motivation
• workout