by By Chloe Sesar
People have become glued to their phones and often believe everything they see and hear. Many wellness and fitness influencers post new workouts for certain body parts promising “Summer Bodies” and other harmful terms that continue conversations and feelings of body shaming. Although these workouts may show results for these influencers, everyone’s bodies and minds are different, and posting such content can be triggering, especially if it contains misinformation. Here are 3 reasons why wellness and fitness influencers can be toxic to society.
- It Has Been Demonstrated That Fat Loss Cannot Be Targeted And Workouts Are Not One Size Fits All
Trending on Tik Tok and other forms of social media right now is posting fad workouts. This can be helpful to those that struggle with knowing what exercises to perform, but what influencers don’t realize can be damaging is targeting fat loss. It has been proven that spot fat reduction doesn’t work. You have to lose the fat from all places of your body at the same time, so all exercises are important in order to see results. Many of these influencers are not educated on the human body and are therefore not completely reliable, but still, have such large followings.
- Encourage Diet Culture and Disordered Eating
Diet Culture is very popular in the media and edited/unrealistic social media posts from popular influencers help to spread this harmful content. Many adolescents are very unhappy with their body shape and size so this can be particularly bad for younger audiences whose bodies’ are still maturing and developing. Social Media is a highlight reel of reality and does not show followers everything going on in someone’s life. Influencers’ “What I Eat In A Day” videos don’t always show a full day of eating and different daily routines require different nutrients. Diet Culture, Especially for adolescents that are still growing and changing is extremely damaging and teaches people to restrict foods deemed “unhealthy.” In reality, all foods are good in moderation and food should not be seen as a bad thing, but as something necessary to keep our engines running.
- Wellness Influencers Are Fueling The Anti Vaccine Movement
For many years, wellness influencers have tried to use very natural remedies and practices to heal. It was not a surprise when the Covid-19 vaccine came out, many of these same people were advising their followers and Facebook groups against it. There is a big community of wellness influencers that do question the safety of vaccines and are encouraging their followers to remain “unpoked.” Although Tik Tok, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are able to take some of these posts down, there are so many micro-influencers that throw in a comment here or there about the anti-vax movement that might get overlooked.
Social Media Influencers are always in the spotlight and people scroll through their daily posts and use their advice as words to live by. While we are allowed to “fangirl” and admire these people, it’s important to always be aware of the misinformation embedded in many posts and remember to be kind to our minds and bodies!
