The content-ifying of exercise: social media, fit-fluencers, and running apps.

TW: Mentions of eating disorders.

     When a conversation arises over toxic social media, we think of Facetune, influencers perfectly posed on a beach, and Instagram. Such apps are known to be a source of toxic comparison and the battleground of mental health. The most recent batch of Love Islanders has deactivated their personal Instagrams whilst in the villa to lessen the entourage of issues that will come with getting their phone back after going away. Campaigns and wellness tips preach of the dangers of comparison via social media, and the body image, self-esteem, and mental health issues that come with it. What about when this environment is combined with the sensitive issues of food, exercise, and body image?

In around 2017, some influencers moved into the space of fitness content. You could be into fitness, be an influencer, and make content (and profit) from this. There became a whole new genre of online personality. Widely successful entrepreneurs found their beginnings in the fitness content industry (Sarah’s Day, Meggan Grubb, Grace Beverley), whilst other influencers decided to enter the industry from the sidelines later on in their careers. If you take the essence of an influencer, merging them with sensitivities such as eating, exercise, and body image, especially with no qualifications, becomes problematic. Their career and the way they make money at the very core stem from the insecurity mining done by big brands that trickle down to product releases and ads. They’re paid to promote remedies for insecurities; teeth whitening, protein powder, makeup, or hair loss treatments. Their exercise content becomes beauty-standard and insecurity-mining content under the guise of wellness and fitness.

Zara McDermott examines influencers like herself as one of the causes of eating disorders and body-image issues in her BBC documentary ‘Disordered Eating’. In 2020, Zara made an additional account to her main influencing profile to document her weight-loss journey. ‘A day with Zara’ threw her into the world of fitness and wellness content. On the account, the main questions she got were about food; how much she ate and its calories. She talks in the documentary about whether content like hers has a place at a time when eating disorders are rife. Whilst the main premise of the account was to document her own progress and grow her business, she says, it actually became a log of her disordered eating and warped relationship with exercise disguised as wellness content – spreading this negative attitude with vulnerable young people. The combination of pedestalled influencers with personal fitness and exercise content can spread misinformation, and unhealthy habits, and have detrimental effects. In recovery from her disordered eating and after becoming aware of the collateral of sharing such content, the account has since been from @adaywithzara to @atzarashouse. Her content has moved towards nutritious, varied food, fewer bikini pictures and a healthier relationship with exercise.

The overt correlation between fitness content and disordered eating is explored bluntly and humorously by Ban Hass. A self-proclaimed ‘f*** fitspo PT’, she works to expose the harmful side of consuming fitness-influencer content and their ‘DiScIPline & DeDiCaTiOn’ unqualified preaching. She talks about content that glorifies disordered eating masked as fitness and wellness. She exposes that most of this genre does not actually promote anything close to a healthy lifestyle; instead preaches restriction, punishment, and disordered eating.

What about, then, social media that is made for sharing fitness content of non-influencers? What if the negative comparison is coming from people we know? Shreddy, the workout app founded by ex-fitness influencer Grace Beverly, encourages members to interact in-app and to create external Instagram accounts to log their progress and join the community. Searching ‘Shreddy’ on Instagram comes up with thousands of accounts and people posting under the hashtags to share workouts, progress pics, meals and more. Over the coronavirus lockdowns, non-influencer fitness enthusiasts also made fitness accounts where they documented dedicating the time to work on themselves. TikTok too is a social media that platforms the content of the average creator. The For You Page shows content from an infinite number of profiles with diverse followings and fame. Vulnerable people may be able to shield themselves from specific influencers with thousands of followers that create branded content and promote products, but how do you shield yourself from the content created by someone who just loves the gym and wants to share it? With the rise of fitness content online, experts were warning of soaring eating disorders and the exacerbation of existing issues. There’s a direct correlation between this and the amount of fitness media from both influencers and the average person being posted and consumed. But it’s no one’s fault that exercise has become content, we share everything else, so why not this?

What about apps that combine social media elements with fitness? Are these spaces hellscapes or a place to build a positive community outside the toxicity of mainstream apps and misinformed money-spinning agendas? Run-logging apps and fit-bits are just some of the tech used to record, share, and track workouts.

But can these apps be equally as toxic and harmful as classic social media? Negatively comparing yourself to someone (that you do or don't know) and being able to track their exercise online is detrimental to mental and physical health. Such delicate, personal, and sensitive topics published online seem so intimate and exposing. I spoke some someone with a history of disordered eating and exercise. They told me about a person they idolised for a period of time. ‘I remember she had a running account, and also a small ‘fitness’ Instagram. I would force myself to look at them and would sob over them, more so than her actual Instagram. I used to cry and be so anxious if she’d run that day, and I hadn’t. A mess really'. We have enough to think about and compare to on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn without throwing people’s exercise into the mix as well. Whilst activity-logging apps attempt to solely be for friendly competition and personal progress, they cannot escape the fact that they are social media. 60% of people I spoke to that use the apps said that they open them even if they aren’t posting an activity; scrolling it like a social media and making it function as one.

60% of people I spoke to that use apps such as MapMyRun or Strava said, probably unsurprisingly, that the apps have been a source of negative comparison for them at some point. A lot of people said they used the apps for things like ‘sharing progress’, but answers like ‘to compare my runs to others’, and ‘to share my speed, time, and frequency’ were the most popular. I also asked, ‘have you ever not posted a run because it wasn’t ‘good’ enough?’ Although some answered yes, they weren’t the majority. So, it’s a mixed bag as to whether such apps are toxic-ish elite spaces, or not. Self-improvement through exercise is a great way to build discipline and self-esteem, but publishing it seems to stray from the values of personal progress. Instead of 'likes', Strava uses 'kudos' for people to show their support for the runs of others. Comments on runs are always positive, about the route, the pace, jokes about the song choices. But it is what happens behind the posts that is the true issue of social media. Just as we can't tell in a beautiful Instagram picture that the person was crying as they posted it, we can't see people's internal relationships with exercise. Over exercising, forcing through injury, running off insufficient food, completely masked. Personal progress tracking with a side of competition seems healthy and fun. But when its not fun. it's really not fun.

Strava allows you to publish your burnt calories calculated from weight input. It prizes numbers in the form of overall time, distance, pace, and splits. Converting movement into numbers is something that has come with technology, but is it pointless? Toxic? Putting a number to things can fuel over-analysis, negative comparison, and competition in something that is meant to be fun. Step count and other factors such as ‘closing your rings’ have made exercise data rather than movement. Instead of enjoying your walk, you are captioning your story with ‘morning steps?’ give me a break. Runners still run if we don’t see it on Strava, and maybe they’re enjoyed more than the people's we do see. Non-app users explained the reasons they don’t log their exercise. The responses ranged from ‘I run more for fun than numbers’ or simply ‘I don’t care about my pace’. Seems kind of a liberating mindset.

Body, exercise, and food-positive online personality Em Clarkson talks on her Instagram about the number-factor of exercise. Your walk still counting if you left your apple watch at home is the topic of one of her reels. She encourages her followers to ditch Fitbit every once in a while, and not log their runs every so often.

The content-ifying of fitness also goes beyond actual posted content. Exercise is content even when it isn’t. This has resulted in there being a prescribed way to exercise and what you should look like doing it. Speaking to a friend, we realised that what are marketed as women’s workout sets are the most impracticable clothes for exercise. Tight, restrictive, uncomfortable, and exposing, the standard stuff marketed for women to work out in makes it more about what the exercise looks like than the actual exercise. On this note, since when did a baggy tee shirt become a pump cover?

Beyond safe practices, there is no wrong way to exercise, but somehow there also is. There are whole communities online of people filming others working out in the gym doing it ‘wrong’. If I want to superset bicep curls with squats and then try and do some handstands, yes it might not be optimum for someone’s idea of the goals I should have, but what’s really wrong with it? Movement is no longer movement; it’s been made into data or aesthetic content or competition of knowledge. In opposition, Em tells her community that a run is still a run if you walk for part of it!

Intuitive fitness trainer Tally Rye is part of a similar online movement. As a response to diet culture, the competitive nature of exercising, over-exercising, and a disordered relationship with fitness and wellness, her podcast Train Happy dispels the idea that movement has to look or be a certain way. She talks about making exercise and food completely intuitive and non-prescriptive. Her episodes tackle topics like the need for more plus-size activewear, why we really work out, making workouts more intuitive, and making fitness more inclusive.

Em Clarkson also creates content that makes exercise less daunting and proves that it doesn’t have to look a certain way. The Have-A-Go’s are a community of movement-positive women inserting fun into movement, and moving away from the prescriptive nature of other exercise content. Surfing, rugby, roller-skating, and running are just some of the activities the community try-out and make less daunting and exclusionary. Exercise doesn’t have to be numbered, or a time amounted in the gym – get yourself in the sea and don’t log it as a swim!

I don’t want to fit to a box of being a green-juice girl or a weights girl or a cardio bunny or a Pilates girl. My walk is not a hot girl walk or my evening steps, I just fancied a stroll, and I don’t want to grimace through another 1000 meters just so I can flex I did a 5k run on Strava.