What’s Wrong with the Fitness and Health Industry
When it comes to the fitness and health industry, it seems like it is always going through new trends from the most popular diets to the best way of “accepting your body.”
But just like with almost everything, there isn’t a black and white way of doing things in this industry. Unfortunately, that’s how people in general including professionals end up approaching things. For example, if you’re counting calories, you’re going to end up having an eating disorder. Another one is if you’re trying to lose weight and achieve a certain body composition, something is wrong with you. If you don’t accept yourself at the weight you are, then you’re a bad person.
Which Label Are You?
With new trends going around such as body positivity, intuitive eating, HAES, and now body neutrality, I can understand the headaches some may have when deciding which category do they fit in the best. The answer is it depends. However, the answer could also be none of those and you can just be yourself and that’s good enough.
Even though these movements may be “well-intended,” they still come with a set of guidelines to follow which usually leads to the feeling of not being good enough if these guidelines are not being fully achieved. We’re all human and will continue making mistakes. Instead of trying to be good at these trends, we need better coping skills when we do end up falling off.
One of these coping strategies is to take things one step at a time and watch the compound effect of being consistent. That’s why I am a huge advocate of learning good habits because it is more realistic and sustainable. Read more on how to obtain habits and different ways you can finally do that activity you’ve been holding off on by using identity-based habits. Having good habits also helps you to get things done without relying on motivation which doesn’t come as often as we’d like.
Going back to these fitness and health trends, the problem is they put a label on you, and if you try to pursue that trend but don’t fully follow the guidelines, then you can’t be labeled that and you end up feeling like a failure. These trends also make you feel inhuman and stuck. It is almost like you have to be one of these labels if you’re on a health journey. Whatever it is you are trying to pursue-weight-loss, strength, have more energy-you can do it without a label.
Be Free From Labels
From experience, I fall into none of these categories. Even though I have always appreciated my body and taken good care of it (body positivity), I still like to pursue other goals such as gain more muscle definition, lose body fat and gain strength. In the world of body positivity, that’s not a part of being positive about your body because you’re trying to pursue change and this trend is about accepting your body for what it is.
FYI you’re allowed to want to change your body. These movements tend to build shame around those who have a pure desire to lose weight, fat, etc. and it should not be like that because actively pursuing a change in your body doesn’t always mean there’s something wrong with you or you’re a bad person for doing that. Therefore, I don’t categorize myself even if there are some parts of my journey that fall under these labels. We should be able to acknowledge that we can do both: accept our bodies and pursue change. You don’t have to do only one or the other.
The HAES Approach
This is where Health At Every Size (HAES) comes into play and is a little controversial. This movement has opened people’s eyes to learning that “skinny” does not equal healthy. There are people with smaller frames who are unhealthier than those with bigger frames. However, the movement became controversial when people’s serious health concerns were being overlooked just for the sake of accepting their body shape. HAES to a certain extent is valuable but we need to understand when it can get too far. According to the Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDH), the principles of HAES include recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional (physical, social, spiritual, etc) and promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes. It’s great that the way we look at different body shapes has come a long way. But we can’t just deny someone’s health just to accept their body.
Less on Body Shape
A more important perspective to look at is to stop focusing on the way someone looks and accept them for who they are as a person. All of these movements highlight too much on the way our bodies look when the original intent was to just accept people for who they are no matter their shape or size.
The Next Movement in the Industry
At this point, the fitness and health industry is evolving with new trends with good intentions and it has come a long way for the better. But with everything, there are cons and pros and we can get better by working on what is wrong with these movements. Hopefully, we get to a point where pursuing any weight goal, and health goal from physical to mental is okay to do simultaneously without trying to fit in with one of these trends.
