It wasn’t too long ago that “thinspiration” blogs featuring images, quotes, and stories to inspire girls to be overly skinny plagued our social media sites. The concept was absurd and dangerous considering the anorexic and bulimic behaviors it encouraged. Like all bad trends, “thinspiration” dissipated allowing for a new blog trend to take its place— “fitspiration”.
We all know fitness is important; especially for us college girls. We have all had those moments of picking up and apple instead of a bag of m&ms or gone for a run instead of continuing to watch the real housewives episode we’ve already seen three times. But did you know exactly how much this fitness culture has grown over the past few years? With obesity on the rise since the late ‘80s, the fitness industry has grown enormously and isn’t slowing down. Good for us Americans getting fit right? Well yes, and for many of us (myself included) we are finding the balance of working out and eating right with the occasional chance to stuff all the Panera Bread into our mouths that we can fit.
But this is where the “fitspiration” comes in. All too often these bogs are encouraging an unhealthy side of fitness whether the viewer realizes it or not. These images of ripped women with zero percent body fat are giving false hope and leading to people harming themselves trying to reach unobtainable heights. Pushing your limits too far at the gym and skipping out on the foods your body needs is extremely dangerous and harmful, not beneficial. A lot more goes into those girls flat tummies and mind boggling biceps than just working out and being healthy; genetics, cutting out fats and carbs, loading their bodies with bodybuilding powders like pre-workout (don’t even get me started on the problems with that crap), and not to mention some serious photo editing in many cases. And guys this all applies to you too! “Fitspiration” encourages people to be unhappy with what they look like and workout to an extreme to create a better body. Do people not see how awful that is?! You’re body will always be your own beautiful body no matter what! “Strong is the new skinny” paired with a picture of defined abs is the common mantra you see on these sites, but doesn’t that sound familiar? We have circled back around to that whole idea of skinny is what’s “correct”; back to the ideas of “thinspiration”. Ideas of body image and obsession with it is the basis of both trends.
So why has “fitspiration” not experienced the same backlash as “thinspiration”? Well that brings us back to the start of this article. Fitness is on the rise in such a way that it is becoming a norm to encourage a healthy lifestyle. But really, “Fitspiration” is basically “thinspiration” in disguise. It seems to be all about being healthy and being fit but it is not really promoting these positive things in all too many cases. Don’t get me wrong, there are great fit role models out there, and there is no problem with promoting your body goals. Just keep in mind the ways to be fit that are actually healthy; reasonable goals, good eating (not dieting), keeping in mind your limits, and most importantly loving your body unconditionally.
Student at Southern New Hampshire University studying many things, especially how to get drunk the fastest. Just trying to write her way into the America’s heart.
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