podcast

The podcast episode discusses the influence of fitness influencers in the world of bodybuilding. The host raises concerns about the credibility of these influencers and the lack of proper education in fitness. Many influencers give advice without having knowledge or qualifications in the field. The content under fitness influencer hashtags is mostly focused on showcasing fit bodies rather than providing useful information or tutorials. This leads to insecurity and a lack of education for those seeking inspiration. The host advises not to compare oneself to others and to focus on personal progress and self-love instead. Hi, welcome to Bodybuilding with Bea, a bodybuilding-focused podcast with me, your host, Bella. We talk about all things bodybuilding, as you know, I'm a bodybuilder myself. Today our topic is going to be fitness influencers, which I'm sure we're all familiar with what influencing is now, it's 2024, we're all living in the 21st century. But we have influencers for everything now, we have mom influencers, we have dog influencers, we have cooking influencers, we have skateboarding influencers, whatever it is that you like, whoever it is you are, there's somebody on the internet who is filling in the influencer position for that niche. So which brings up, if everyone's an influencer now, who's credible, specifically in the world of bodybuilding? So this is why it's so important to me, being a bodybuilder, especially as somebody that has knowledge on it and the science behind it is so many people are getting into working out now because of what they see on the internet, but what are the things that they're seeing on the internet? Are they healthy? Are they unhealthy? Are they correct? Are they improper? What's the science behind these things and who's teaching them? So let's get into it. My first con of the fitness influencers is many of these people trying to influence others in the world of fitness have no education on fitness themselves, whether it be biology, whether it be sports science, many people are getting on the internet and giving blatant advice without knowing anything about anything, which is leading to people following the wrong people's advice because if everybody is on the internet and being loud and giving advice, it's very hard to tell who does have a bachelor's in science, who is a certified personal trainer, and often people are now turning to just listening to people who they feel have the body that they would like to achieve, which often is not a very good thing as many people with sought after and healthy looking bodies just genetically are built that way and born that way. So it's very hard for somebody that is genetically overweight to look at somebody like that and know that that's just how they're born, that's how their body stores fat, you know, you don't know any better. So now I'm going to transition into why this fitness influencing doesn't actually end up influencing anybody. So most of the content we see under hashtag fitness influencer, hashtag fitspo, which stands for fitness inspo, and other like hashtags on the internet in the fitness community is not workout tutorials, not food recipes, not hacks on how to cut certain calories, no really substantial information, rather most of this content is just videos and pictures of people with fit bodies, which to me doesn't really make sense because how is that inspirational? How is me seeing somebody with abs inspirational to me? How is me seeing somebody be able to do 100 pushups inspirational to me? For me, when I hear the word fitness inspiration or fitness influencers, I'm looking for the influence. I'm looking for something that's going to push me to go want to do these things. I'm looking for education. I'm looking to be steered in the right direction. But instead, especially I've written many papers on this topic, over 70% of the physical imagery seen under hashtags, like I mentioned, such as fitspo, are selfie content. And within that 70%, 50% of that, I believe it's higher, it's towards the 65% end is sexualized imagery of oneself. So we're not really receiving any content in the gym. We're not receiving any tutorials on how to use gym equipment. We're not receiving tutorials on how to make certain recipes. We're truly just being influenced, quote unquote, by seeing these skinnier bodies or seeing these more muscular bodies. So in that endeavor, it one creates insecurity from the viewer who's watching it, who now has seen what they would like to look like and has been given absolutely no knowledge on how they should be getting there. So in reality, what this content ends up creating is one insecurity, and then two, it just actually does no job at all at educating the person who's trying to seek out some form of inspiration to go get in the gym and get healthier. So that's my little speech for today. I'm going to leave you on the note of what my best advice is for somebody that has gotten to fitness and health and lifting and has gained a good amount of muscle and lost a good amount of fat over what I would consider to be a short period of time is to not compare yourself to these people, to shut down the internet, unfollow these people on Instagram, block these posts, because from my personal experience, and at least from the experiences of other girls my age, all that this media does is make you more insecure with your body. And the more insecure you get with your body, the more you see yourself in competition with what you see in the mirror, and the more you see a need for change rather than finding a love for fitness and realizing you weren't able to do something with your body that you're now able to do, and falling in love with yourself, slowly getting stronger and stronger. That is what I will always continue to spread, is watching your body get stronger and not blocking everybody out. None of us have the same genetics, none of us are built the same way, none of us store the fat in the same areas at the same rates, truly comparison is the root evil of just about everything, but specifically the fitness world. So I leave you with that, I'll leave you with all bodies are beautiful bodies, and all bodies are good bodies. So stop comparing your body to somebody else's body, stop comparing your experiences to other people's experiences, and when I stopped doing that was truly when I, one, saw the most progress in the gym, and two, saw the most progress in my mental health. So I'll see you next week on Bodybuilding with Bea.