On TikTok and Instagram, fitness content is everywhere. The algorithms serve users glossy videos featuring toned bodies, gym routines and healthy food recommendations. It’s not exactly new: “fitspiration” — an amalgam of “fitness” and “inspiration” — is one of the oldest types of content on the Internet, with its roots in the “thinspiration” world of online eating disorder communities.
Fitness content has evolved with new hashtags over the years, but it is still dominated by the visual language of “fitspo,” such as photographs and videos that emphasize strict diet and exercise routines. And researchers have accumulated evidence that these images are harmful to users’ mental health and self-image and may encourage eating disorders.
“It’s amazing how people are reacting to this [content]” says Valerie Gruest, who studies the Internet’s effect on body image at Northwestern University. Gruest is a former Olympic swimmer who competed for Guatemala at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
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“This subject [of fitspiration] is so dear to my heart, not only as a researcher but also as an athlete,” Gruest says. She grew up exposed to a lot of fitness content in a sports environment that already had an “intense eating disorder culture,” she explains. After injuries ended her career, she decided to become a researcher by studying how this content worked on social media. In a meta-analysis published this week in Health Communication, She examined the mental health effects of a decade of research into the content of fitspiration.
Scientific American spoke with Gruest last week, just hours before he defended his Ph.D. thesis, to ask how fitness content has evolved, how it affects adults and children, and how we can curate our social media feeds to motivate ourselves in healthy ways.
[[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Tell me more about fitspiration content and your own exposure to it over the years.
“Fitspiration” content has always appeared very organically on my social media feed and that of the people around me throughout my athletic career. This is content that promotes a more active lifestyle but, in the background, motivates people to aspire to a very thin and very fit body ideal, which in many cases is very unattainable. I can say for myself that even as an elite athlete it was very difficult to achieve that kind of body. It is not correlated with sports performance. There is often an implicit or explicit invitation for users to engage in disordered eating and exercise practices in order to achieve these standards.
For my doctorate. As part of my thesis, I had the opportunity to speak with different types of social media users, from elite athletes to people who did not consider themselves active. And even in conversations with athletes, there was this feeling: “It’s just impossible for me to find the time or really have this strict mentality when it comes to food and exercise in order to achieve ‘ideal’ body standards.”
How has fitspiration content evolved over time?
This content has origins dating back to the rise of the web, with roots in pro-eating disorder websites. People with eating disorders shared their experiences to motivate others to achieve extreme body standards through imagery of emaciated bodies. They evolved into spaces like Tumblr and Pinterest, and that’s where “thinspiration” and “Thinspo” were born through hashtags. Many of these platforms have taken action, canceling accounts linked to the thought. This is where fitspiration began to emerge, as the typical image of a selfie in a Nike sports bra and very small shorts, not as a way to promote fitness, but still to promote a very slim body. Then, with the rise of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, this is where fitspiration was adopted more widely online. Now we are exposed to this content most of the time. Maybe we don’t always see the hashtag “fitspiration,” but many of these fundamental elements are there. Brands have now adopted the trend in their wellness and fitness marketing.
You recently analyzed the results of 26 studies that tested the effects of Fitspo content. What did you find?
The scientist The literature on fitspiration content has primarily focused on trying to understand the content itself and what the message looks like. But there are also experimental studies on the general impact of fitspiration content. After direct exposure to such content, what is people’s immediate reaction? This meta-analysis allows us to chart the best available evidence on the effects of exposure to fitspiration content.
And we find that it’s pretty consistently negative for users to be exposed to such content. This made people compare themselves to the people depicted, negative self-perceptions increased and positive feelings decreased. We also saw an increase in motivation around diet and exercise. This tells us that this content actually has influence on the user outside of the digital world.
That last part seems like a good thing if it encourages people to exercise and eat healthier. Why wouldn’t it be?
What makes fitspiration very unique and concerning is that it is meant to motivate a healthier lifestyle, but it does so with the goal of achieving a particular body standard. And that’s where the problem comes in. It’s not about promoting health. The content encourages you to be extremely conscious of what you eat with very, very specific requirements. I don’t even think elite athletes get to that level, because performance nutrition today is very focused on refuel your body, without restricting your body. A lot of [exercise regimens] that are being promoted are extreme measures, involving lots of repetitions and high intensity that your body needs to be prepared for. I know what it takes to reach this elite level of training, and it’s not something healthy for the average person.
The people who create this content don’t just say, “Oh, eat healthy and exercise regularly.” It’s basically “restrict food and exercise a lot to make up for what you’ve eaten.” This is where these messy patterns start to emerge.
You mentioned that this body standard is often unattainable for most people. Does this explain why it can have negative effects on mental health?
Yeah, absolutely. When people engage in fitspiration content, it becomes this cycle: It motivates me to pursue these standards, but nothing I do brings me this body standard. And that creates a lot of frustration because a lot of people have adopted these extreme measures and don’t see the effects. What makes this body standard so difficult to achieve is that you have to be pretty thin and, on top of that, build muscle. And from an elite athlete’s perspective, it takes a lot to build muscle, right? This requires a lot from the nutrition side. It takes a lot to recover. Many people I’ve interviewed describe the process as “just never-ending.” You think you’ve accomplished part, but then you’re exposed to another message, which then reminds you that there are other things you need to change about yourself.
Is there a way to present fitness content that doesn’t have these negative effects?
Some influencers who are not part of the fitspiration sphere favor a healthier and holistic approach. What fuels your body? What does your body need in terms of exercise that day? How was your sleep? Are you recovering correctly?
But I think there needs to be a broader movement on the ground [of nutritionists and doctors to communicate about] health, exercise and nutrition across media channels. Younger generations consume [content] at rates we’ve never seen before on social media. This is where they mainly get their information and they use it for health advice.
How does this content affect children?
The average young user identifies fitness content as one of the top types of content they are exposed to on a daily basis. It’s so omnipresent in their feeds. For my thesis I asked these young users to share their experiences. And they felt like what they were exposed to was out of their hands. Only people in their 20s had the maturity to say, “I don’t want to see this type of content. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself.” They say it took them many years to come to this conclusion because media effects are not immediately felt; [such effects] evolve over time. Their solution was to organize content to limit it on their feeds.
So how do you approach this with children? Generally speaking, studies have shown that younger users are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate these image-centric environments. Much research on body image and media psychology has shown that exposure time on social media is closely linked to body image issues and disordered eating tendencies. Of course, screen time has a big impact because it’s not just about seeing a single image. In the studies in this meta-analysis, experiments showed [something like] 10 to 27 images per experiment. You can consume this amount of images in one minute on social networks. It’s really important to consider the cumulative effects.
For people trying to curate their feeds, what are some red flags to look out for when it comes to fitness-related content?
I I think it’s about always checking in with yourself. How does this content make me feel? Does this correspond to my values, my beliefs, my lifestyle, my goals? Does the content promote anything that can harm my health, [such as] dietary restriction or ultra-control of eating routines and lifestyles? In the interviews I have conducted, people often say that they think that [the dieting and exercise routines] resume their lives, in a way. They feel like they’re not going to social events because they’re at the gym trying to burn off what they ate that day or they just feel like they can’t skip any workout.
Fitspiration content is naturally designed to be visually appealing. It’s very aesthetically pleasing, which on these image-centric platforms is what gives it so much appeal. I think a realistic, very honest recording is always a great way to start. What goal do you aspire to achieve? And is it rooted in a quest for health or beauty? I think that’s where we can draw the line.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, you can contact National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Related Disorders hotline by calling (888) 375-7767. For crisis situations, you can text “CONNECT” to 741741 to connect with a trained volunteer at Crisis Text Line.
