Do fitness centres "skinny" messages promote negative body image issues to our customers?

by Alisha Smith | Monday, January 23, 2012

There's an aspect of the fitness industry that I'm quite torn on.
We are an industry that plays a vital role in dealing with the obesity epidemic that is plaguing our nation, yet I wonder if we aren't also contributing to another insidious health issue- negative body image and eating disorders?

With so much focus placed on being lean, losing weight and achieving the most aesthetically pleasing bodies that we can, are we pushing our more vulnerable clients and members in the wrong direction? One of immense personal scrutiny and excessive and often unrealistic expectation?

On my way to work, I pass at least 10 different fitness facilities of varying size and target markets, yet at this time of year almost all of them are drawing people in with minorly different versions of the same major message: "Lose your Christmas kilos! Jump on the New Year resolution bandwagon!" I absolutely love that we have the power to motivate people toward positive change. Toward change that ultimately has the ability to allow them to lead long and healthy lives, but I'm also concerned that we're potentially using the wrong selling point and it's impacting negatively on ever growing numbers of people.

I know that it's naive of me to hope for a time when as an industry we all move away from worshiping at the powerful temple of weight loss, because I understand that in a lot of cases 'skinny' = 'sales'. Is it also naive of me to hope that if we make a choice to devote some time to trying to undo the messages in the media, that we might encourage and promote the idea that an 8-pack is not directly related to how valuable or worthy a person is?

What do you think? Is there anything that you or your place of work has done to celebrate positive body image? How big an impact can the fitness industry have on such a society-wide issue?

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