The start of the new year inspires motivation for self-improvement and lifestyle changes. For years, people have tried trendy diets and set new goals to change their daily habits.
But while self-improvement has always been a norm for the new year, I have noticed working out and fitness have become commercialized and reduced to a trend on social media, often deterring from the main goal of working out — to better your own health and mind.
Social media tries to package certain lifestyles to people, and it’s increasingly easy to fall into that trap for exercise. Last year, I found myself sitting on social media comparing myself to the influencers on my feed. The harmful comparison made me feel bad about my body image and lifestyle and enticed me to buy into these pre-packaged lifestyles of certain clothing and habits, like Pinterest-esque clean girl aesthetic to change myself for the wrong reasons.
My motivation to go to the gym and eat healthy did not stem from my own needs but the desire to be someone else — whatever social media told me was trending. I see others from our generation, even on campus, are embracing the trend of fitness. Lerner Health and Wellness Center has been packed and I see fellow students on social media, in their private stories or on Instagram posts, suddenly making exercise and wellness their entire personality.
Fitness and health has always been commercialized, from workout routines being sold via VHS tapes in the 1980s or hundreds of YouTube videos with 10 or 15-minute workouts, but social media has taken it a step further. Not only have influencers promised someone they will be fit or toned in a matter of a couple of weeks, but it now comes with a lifestyle and aesthetic. Currently, we have the “pilates princess” trend, complete with light pink hues, bows, heatless curlers and a Stanley tumbler, of course. Social media has made my generation treat fitness like fashion, jumping from trend to trend, “coastal grandma” to “coquette.”
Reaching a certain desired social media standard now brings additional costs, from the most exclusive spin classes to workout clothes from the best brands and in the rarest colors. I’ve heard many TikTok influencers promoting a cute workout set and a matching water bottle. Most of the time, the influencer makes money if you buy the clothes or water bottle featured in the video. Pilates princesses have become more about pushing consumer goods on people than actually improving yourself.
When fitness becomes an aesthetic, the benefits of exercise are devalued. The trend of working out has turned into teenagers and young adults wanting to be more like their favorite influencer than doing it for themselves.
This For You page fitness destroys the whole point of working out: consistency. Going to the gym for a week will show no progress, and neither will jumping from one trend to another. The over-commercialization of the fitness world has made it harder for people to find a workout routine that works for them, moves them toward their goals and is fun.
Because influencers generalize workout routines and create the illusion that their routines will work for everyone, many people become discouraged to exercise. People’s bodies have different needs and one person’s “shredded arm workout” won’t work as well for someone as it does for other people.
Working out is all about being healthy and feeling good about yourself in your own body, but when we allow it to turn into a trend or something to pour our money into, we lose sight of that and instead let it become something fleeting, or worse, unhealthy.
Alexia Green, a first-year majoring in journalism and mass communications, is an opinions writer.
