Who To Trust On Social Media
Research from earlier this year shows fitness influencers might be frauds.
Good Morning!
I hope you’re having a great start to the week.
This past spring, The New York Times gave us even more profound insights than what we’d already had — and what I’d written about earlier this year — about social media fitness influencers, or “Fitfluencers.”
The article discussed recent research on fitfluencers and found that 100 fitfluencers studied, around two-thirds of them did not give “sound advice” or ran pages that were more detrimental to the mental health of their followers than positively affecting their physical.
The study, published in BMC Public Health Journal, is a pretty damning breakdown of influencers and notes that most “fitness” accounts were more indicative of “sexualization, objectification or promotion of unhealthy or unrealistic body shapes.”
Even worse — only half were credentialed fitness professionals. But virtually all accounts contained an exercise video and example workouts, which are the basic prerequisites for anyone curious about how to get fit on Instagram.
Women and Fitness Social Media: Digging Deeper
The Times’ article gives excellent advice for ways to seek out better fitness accounts, encouraging more thorough hashtag searching, seeking out credentials, and looking for language in creators’ posts that talk less about the body and more about just moving.
But, as rosy of a proposition as it is to decide “we’re not going to follow just anyone who’s a fitfluencer anymore,” that simply isn’t happening.
Central to the BMC research is the idea that the lack of movement crisis needs addressing, and social media is the best way to raise awareness for such a cause.
“Mass-reaching public health campaigns to promote physical activity are needed. Online social networks can reach many people and are increasingly used to deliver public health interventions and messaging. In early approaches, Facebook was the most popular platform [2], with recent studies using other social networks.”
Instagram is a platform of 1.3 billion users. At the risk of sounding depressingly cynical, I doubt even a tenth of a percentile of Instagram users will see the New York Times article or any ensuing journal studies causing us to question influencer credibility.
The overwhelming majority of the BMC “fitspiration” study that was credible were women (59%), aged 25–34 (54%), who were Caucasian (62%), and from the United States (79%).
Still, even in this group, less than half of them were credentialed. And they could unknowingly contribute to more of a “thinspiration” than “fitspiration” depending on the language they use in their content.
This group of young white women who have amassed tons of followers (and likely some good revenue from this followership) is likely going to be the first place where a lot of women from the age of 16-45 look for tips because of their appearance.
The age of social media has brought about more body dysmorphia, less concentrated back-testing of information, and a cocktail or visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning in the gym.
When I think of the people I train (about 65% of my clientele are women between 30-and 60), I worry that my expertise will often have to collide or coincide with what these influencers say. I have no control over what my clients’ consume, but I find myself debunking many things heard through the timeline.
I’m far more concerned with the younger girls (20-30) who see these #bodygoals kind of women on their feed and get too attached to a particular physique without considering what that attachment does to one’s mental health.
Ask yourself: Does this fitness influencer make you feel good in your own skin?
-Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, LCSW
The study mentions that the amount of “credible” accounts likely reflects the consumer user base, meaning other young girls are likely liking, following, and sharing these posts. It’s true that good motivation comes from following these accounts and that the impetus to train to look better is a net positive of following fitfluencers.
However, I worry that without cognizance of sexualization, more diversity in the space of fitfluencer women, and lack of education, there could be a continued mental health crisis, particularly among young girls, perpetuated by this group.
To give my bits of advice on this subject and who to follow, I’ll echo the sentiments of the New York Times piece and add a few bullet points of my own, reordering them in this hierarchy:
Search for credentialed professionals (degree or certification). Think twice if it’s not on their profile or the link in their bio.
Ask yourself if you’re following them to look like them or to learn from them
Find accounts that talk about body ability, not body image
Look for a diverse group of accounts, not just one demographic
Make sure they’re staying in their lane. If they’re only exercise certified, they might be unable to teach you nutrition or mental health tips.
Look for advice on the internet that backs up what you read on Instagram. If more than one source makes you question the fitfluencer, unfollow them
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