Are fitness professionals doing more harm than good with our selfies?

Is #fitspiration doing what it says on the tin?

I had pools of sweat in my collar bone online earlier today whilst discussing this topic. Partly responsible was the 30-degree heat and my insistence on buying the only old house in the neighbourhood that came with very little ventilation, but part at least was related to the glorious intensity of the conversation.

Fitspiration. Radical body acceptance. Selfies.

As fitness professionals, where do we stand on the morality of these things? Are we doing harm to peoples’ health by sharing them, and if so, is that our responsibility?

For the purpose of this article, I’m speaking solely about body image. Because negative body image is associated with myriad mental health struggles, anxiety, depression, disordered eating, low libido, to name but a few. In fact, poor body image is the strongest predictor of eating disorders (body image: the way one thinks, feels, the beliefs they have and the things they do in relation to how they look).

Contributors to poor body image include social comparison, internalisation of social ideals, introjected values from family, friends, the media, appearance-based feedback and conversation, body preoccupation and checking, to name but a few.

There is also a deep connection between poor body image and self-objectification theory, whereby persistent objectification of one’s body contributes to heightened body shame, which although is most experienced in women, is experienced by all genders. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is restricted solely to receiving unwanted negative comments about one’s appearance, but this extends to any comments on one’s physical appearance. In fact, some research suggests that greater positive appearance-based feedback is associated with negative body image.

Considering our marketing strategies and online presence as fitness professionals, and our potential to contribute to almost all of the above, from social comparison, projection of social norms through transformation pictures or indeed, our own bodies, down to complimenting weight loss and the way our clients or followers look, where do we draw the line between personal responsibility of our audience and of ourselves?

Is it fair to potentially sacrifice the marketing or financial success of your business for the sake of possibly negatively impacting someone’s mental health, who has the autonomy and power to simply choose not to see it? Is it fair to stifle your egoic needs (I include myself in here when I post that Saturday night photo dump) for the same reason? Is it fair to feel somewhat inauthentic in your marketing and self?

Maybe this depends on where you see yourself and your business. Do you consider yourself a health professional? Or a fitness professional? Because after all, fitness and health are not synonymous, much like fat loss with either of those two terms. Or maybe that’s an unfair comparison. Maybe you can support one’s health in some ways, whilst potentially negatively impacting it elsewhere. There are certainly instances within practice, where coaches diet people past a comfortable level of lean, or encourage ditching of a diet for someone whose health would benefit from fat loss. These technically, would fall into the same debate.

Doing something persistently that we know may be detrimental to one’s mental and physical health feels somewhat unethical. But then, where do we draw the line? I saw an eating disorder specialist recently state that we should have minimal full-length pictures of ourselves on our social media (others say none at all), to avoid fuelling a comparison, especially if the professional has been through the recovery process themselves, by means of suggesting that is what recovery ‘looks like’.

It certainly comes down to both your personal and business values. For me? I most value connection, health, compassion and love, so I don’t post transformation pictures, rarely compliment someone on the way they look, even clients on their fat loss journeys, and post far fewer selfies than I used to. But I do still post them, and maybe that’s problematic given my echo chamber of those looking to manage disordered eating and body image. Maybe I shouldn’t post them at all…

I ask you, what are your values? If you don’t know them, you’ll find it very hard to find yourself in a comfortable spot within this space. Only when you know exactly what’s most important to you and your business, will you be able to market yourself in a way that is morally right for you.

I’ve come on my own journey with this, and I’m still navigating it. I have solely my opinion and the research that I’ve done and feel comfortable with the space I’m in right now. I am no one to say what the ‘right’ thing to do is, but I do like to foster these discussions.

What do you think?