My Problems With The Health & Fitness Industry On Social Media

The health and fitness industry on social media seems to be growing by the minute. Of course it’s amazing to raise awareness for lifestyle related illnesses, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and so on. Since I work in a cardiac rehab facility, I see the effects of a sedentary way of living day in and day out. Sharing tips and tricks on how to improve your health and fitness therefore seems to be a great idea. But when it comes to social media, I don’t think it’s that straight forward. And I really changed my mind on the matter over the past few years. Knowing what I do now, I see a lot of problems with the health & fitness industry on social media.

Why I unfollowed everybody

Alright, I didn’t unfollow EVERYBODY. But back in the day, when I was really really into my “health” and fitness, I did follow a lot of fitness influencers on Instagram (follow me, cheeky plug). At one point, I even wanted to be one of them as well, posting “physique updates” (kinda pathetic looking back now), meals, and snaps from my gym sessions. And of course, I was obsessed with checking out other peoples half naked body shots, meals, etc.

What I didn’t realize then, or didn’t want to, is that a lot of it isn’t real. Of course this applies to all kinds of areas on social media, not just fitness. Nobody is absolutely shredded all year round, at least not in a very healthy way. But seeing that kind of stuff on Instagram everyday tricked me into believing that that was what I should look like. And I adjusted my meals and training accordingly, meaning I trained like a mad woman and didn’t eat. (I already wrote about how all that calorie counting messed with me in this post.)

It was only a few years ago that I realized that following these fitness influencer did me more harm than good. It didn’t motivate me in the right way, but rather made me feel guilty about… I don’t even know. So I started unfollowing all of the accounts that had anything to do with diet or fitness. The only “fitness” people I still follow are actual competing athletes (mostly CrossFitters) and my sister (unfollowing her would be a bit savage, even for me). So bottom line: If you don’t enjoy seeing somebodys content, unfollow them. Don’t let the pressure of looking a certain way get the better of you.

Everything is black and white

I have already touched on this topic in this post, but social media can make things so confusing. There are so many extremes out there, without any shades of grey. And as extremes do, they are always conflicting. It’s either “Eat a high carb, low fat diet if you want to lose weight” or “Eat a high fat, low carb diet if you want to lose weight”. Like whattt? How is the average person supposed to know what to do, with so much information out there? Because those two ways of eating aren’t the only ones, to be sure.

There’s keto, veganism, flexitarianism, some kind of other-ism. But absolutely no way to navigate all the “advice”. And speaking of, although I would say most influencer do mean well, their advice often times isn’t backed up by science, just personal experience. But an n of 1 isn’t very representative of the entirety of social media users, and should be taken with a grain of salt. There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling people how you achieved whatever goal, but make sure you tell them that that’s just what worked for you, and it’s not magic fix for everybody.

Supplements galore!

My next problem with the health & fitness industry is how it makes it seem you need 100 different supplements to reach your goals. Because that simply isn’t true. In fact, there is more and more evidence that a lot of supplements don’t actually have any benefits. Depending on where you are in the world, regulations for supplements are very different. For some countries, very lax. Meaning manufacturers can put whatever they want in there. And they don’t even have to prove they work.

If you eat a healthy, meaning a balanced (carbs, fats, proteins) diet, with lots of fruit and veg, you likely won’t need any supplements at all. If you eat some sort of specific diet, let’s say a vegan one, that’s a different story. In that case, you do need to supplement vitamin B12, for example. But if you’re not vegan/have excluded a large amount of foods from your diet, or struggle with some kind of disease that makes it harder for your body to take up nutrients, chances are you’re wasting your money by buying vitamin supplements.

Wasting your money is one thing, but hurting your body by supercharging vitamins it doesn’t need is another. Your body just needs to work harder to get rid of all that “good stuff” you’ve given it. And it can’t just pee out the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E & K), as it could do with the water soluble ones.

Once again, there isn’t anything wrong with taking supplements, IF YOU NEED THEM. If you have been advised by a medical professional to take a certain nutrient, it’s probably a good idea to do so. If you’re taking it because you saw some influencer talk about it, maybe not so much. Do your own research before you put anything into your body or spend your money on something that doesn’t do anything for you.

Protein or Bro-tein?

Ahhh, we had to get here at some point. Picking up from what I said in the paragraph above, there is not need for protein powders at all. Once again, if you eat a healthy, balanced diet, you’re likely getting enough protein. Even if you’re working out. Yes, protein need does increase a little bit with physical activity. But there’s not scientific evidence to back up the claims a lot of fitness influencers make that you need 2g/kg of bodyweight or whatever. Again, things look a bit different if you’re a professional athlete, training multiple times a day. But the vast majority of people, that work out maybe once a day if that, are probably fine as they are.

That being said, I myself do have a protein shake a few days a week. One reason being that I don’t eat any meat, so I’m likely to get less protein from a meal than the average eater. Another reason is simply that I like the taste of it. I enjoy having “chocolate milk” in the middle of the afternoon. The one I currently use is this one. Anyway, I don’t depend on it to meet my “protein needs”, but try to do that by eating “real food”. (Some might argue that protein shakes are real food as well, and that’s 50

fine with me.)

What is healthy and what isn’t?

My next problem with the health & fitness industry is a bit more serious: I think the perception of a healthy looking body is way off. Once again, I’m generalizing things. But I think a lot of people look at a very fit, lean, even shredded person and think that’s “healthy”. What you don’t see in that picture is what it took to get there. The amount of training, potentially the restriction of food. How the person is doing mentally. Because I know from experience that trying to become as lean as possible can really f*ck you up. And I also know from experience that you don’t consider these things when looking at somebody’s pictures.

Even if the person is alright mentally, restricting your food is not ever healthy. Having a body fat percentage of 5% isn’t healthy. Think about how long our ancestors would have survived if they had 5% body fat. Yes I know it’s a different story nowadays. But I do think it proves the point of being super lean not being very healthy. You decide for yourself.

The trolls

Trolls obviously aren’t just a problem for the health & fitness industry, but online in general. But I think they can be especially hurtful on the topics of fitness and/or weight loss. I think countless people can attest to that. Posting something like progress pictures but only getting comments how they are “still fat” or “still not muscular”. Who cares? If they are feeling or performing better, shouldn’t that be reason enough to celebrate? It’s been said a million of times, but the only person you should compare yourself to is yourself. I have been doing so much better mentally since I stopped caring about what over people are doing and focused on improving myself. I’m very much still working about not caring what other people are thinking about me though. But as I get older, fortunately I care less and less. As one does.

I think I could go on and on about all the things that are f*cked up within the health & fitness industry or social media in general. But I’ll stop myself here, as I don’t want anybody to get into a bad mood, haha. Let me know what you think, if you agree or why you disagree. Also if you have anything to add to that list of course!

Lots of Love,

Lena

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored.