“Social Media Ethics: Do Fitness Influencers cause more harm than good?”

Social media is an extremely influential place where anyone has the power and freedom to share any information and content that they desire. As social media is becoming more popular and widespread, new ethical issues are emerging that need to be addressed. One of the ethical issues I want to focus on is the power wielded by fitness influencers. Fitness influencers are individuals who focus their content on educating others about fitness and healthy living, by sharing how they work out, eat healthy, achieve their specific body aesthetic, and their lifestyle routines. According to Danielle Freedman from the New York Times, “Instagram is home to around 50,000 fitness influencers, most claiming to have the secrets to a healthy lifestyle. While some share science-backed helpful tips, others promote fitness advice that’s misguided at best and dangerous at worst.” While their content can be educational and inspiring, it can also be harmful and do much more damage than good. Here are eight reasons why fitness influencers can be more harmful than helpful.

1. Body Checking:

Fitness Influencers often start their videos with body checks (which often consists of them posing in activewear) and they almost never show their bodies in a natural, relaxed position. Body checks can be harmful because they cause the unrealistic expectation that if you follow the influencer’s advice, you can look just like them! In reality, influencer’s bodies are posed and often they are even edited. This is harmful because it creates unrealistic beauty standards for people, making them feel bad about their own bodies and leading to harmful comparisons. According to Healthline, body checking can become a harmful, compulsive habit that is closely linked to eating disorders.

2. Lifestyle:

People often forget that a fitness influencer's entire life and job revolve around eating healthy, working out, and promoting their body. That is a simply unrealistic lifestyle for many people who are working 9 to 5 or caring for a family. Making fitness the main priority and obsession in your life can be narcissistic, and can harm your relationship with your body and the relationships with those around you! A truly healthy lifestyle is all about balance and figuring out what works best for you.

3. Health:

Healthy looks different on everyone’s body. Even if we all ate and exercised the same exact way, our bodies would react differently. Some of us would be healthy, but others' bodies may need more or less food or more or less exercise to be healthy. Exclusively following a fitness influencer's lifestyle can actually be harmful because every body has different exercise and calorie needs. Your body has unique needs, listen to it!

4. Eating disorders and body image:

Fitness influencers can trigger eating disorders and negative body image. According to Thriveworks when talking about influencers like the Kardashians says, “These women are not promoting health, they’re promoting a worrying obsession with their appearance, and the idea that there’s a shortcut to ‘achieving’ a body like theirs.” Many influencers are promoting unhealthy diet and exercise plans that trigger eating disorders like anorexia, exercise addiction, or body dysmorphia.

5. Misinformation and clickbait:

Misinformation is another area where fitness influencers can be harmful. For example, you could be scrolling social media and one person will tell you that fasting is the easiest way to lose weight, and then the next video someone will tell you that fasting triggers binge eating or slows your metabolism and will make you gain more weight. Influencers will often post things just for views and entertainment, not understanding the full effect and influence they have over people, especially teenagers. It’s important to do your own research backed by science and find out what works best for your body, before you listen to some random influencer on social media tell you how to eat and exercise. If you listen solely to their advice, you could really end up harming your body.

6. Food Guilt:

Along with eating disorders, fitness influencers can also create food guilt. Often they will post a simple “what I eat in a day” but it’s completely unrealistic because they spend money and time and have access to things that a normal person doesn’t have. They also only show their healthiest meals and most productive days, and never show their cheat days, the chips they eat while watching TV, or the ice cream that they enjoyed with their family. If you are only exposed to videos like that, it can lead to intense guilt and fear around certain foods and can even lead to eating disorders. Food is fuel but it is also a huge part of a human’s social connection and enjoyment in life. Having intense food rules and food guilt is exhausting and can cause you to miss out on a lot of your life! Instead, try to focus on the foods that make you happy and feel good. It’s totally okay to treat yourself, it’s all about balance.

7. Exercise:

Fitness influencers often promote exercise as a means to become skinnier and achieve the perfect body, rather than a means to improve your mental health and become stronger and happier. There are many benefits to exercise that go beyond weight loss, but fitness influencers are often focused on their bodies because they get more views. This can again cause harmful thinking and behaviors, especially in teenagers.

8. Muscle Worship:

According to the New York Times, fitness influencers are starting a trend of muscle worship; saying, “Many doctors and researchers say that the relentless online adulation of muscular male bodies can have a toxic effect on the self-esteem of young men, with the never-ending scroll of six packs and boy-band faces making them feel inadequate and anxious.” These trends are causing kids to ruin their bodies for life by overloading on protein, overexercising, and lifting weights that are too heavy, which can cause issues when kids are still growing. Fitness influencers are responsible for the image they are putting out there and the way it affects those who see it.

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f fitness influencers are going to keep posting, they need to put people’s health and personal wellness before likes and views. That is going to mean no more misinformation, backing their advice with science and research, showing the good and the bad days, and being open and honest with their followers. Fitness influencers need to be careful because they hold the future health of our generation in their hands.

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Resources:

Bambini, Madison. “Eating Disorders in the Media: Are Influencers Influencing the Wrong Ideals?” Thriveworks, Oct. 2020, thriveworks.com/blog/eating-disorders-in-the-media.

Friedman, Danielle. “Fitness Influencers Often Do More Harm Than Good, Research Suggests.” The New York Times, 15 May 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/well/move/fitness-influencers.html.

Holtermann, Callie. “Does Social Media Affect Your Body Image?” The New York Times, 21 Mar. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/learning/does-social-media-affect-your-body-image.html.

Stanborough, Rebecca Joy. “What’s Body Checking and How Can You Control It?” Healthline, 16 Oct. 2020, www.healthline.com/health/body-checking.

Photo Credits:

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