On Instagram alone, you’ll find 13.8 million posts under the tag #weightlosstransformation, many showing side-by-side images of people in gym kit (or sometimes just their underwear) showing off how many pounds they’ve shifted since embarking on a new diet and/or exercise regime.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling proud of
your achievements, of course, but is this focus on physical changes actually
the best way to encourage healthy life choices?
New research from Asics reveals that 80
percent of people feel demotivated by before and after pics, while 73 percent
believe society’s obsession with the perfect body image is damaging our mental
health.
“An after picture, it doesn’t give you any
context,” says online creator and activitist Jada Sezer, who was a plus-size model
for 10 years before leaving the industry to pursue other interests.
“You can definitely have an after picture
that might have this idealised body type, yet [that person] could be hungry,
could be really moody, it could affect their periods, they could be angry and
have lost out on some relationships around them because of their moods.”
While social media users might think their
impressive weight loss journey photos are inspirational to others, that’s not
always the case. The research found that 48 percent of people feel insecure
about their bodies after seeing exercise transformation pictures.
More balance
Sezer, who in 2019 ran the London Marathon in
her underwear with journalist and author Bryony Gordon and is also an
ambassador for UN Women UK, wants to encourage a more balanced approach to
exercise and social media.
We caught up with the 33-year-old Londoner to talk fitness, body confidence and building an inclusive community online.
Do you think personal trainers and companies
use before and after photos as a tool to get other people to sign up to their
diet and exercise programmes?
“I think the fitness industry is a very, very
large industry with a lot of profits to be made. And the fact that
transformation pics have become a big part of that is to try and sell this
idealised ideal of what you could become, it’s like selling a dream.
“It doesn’t take into account different
people’s body compositions. It’s not very individualised. It’s very one [size]
fits all. We’re all really different. I just find it can be quite reductive.”
Do you think there’s a healthy way to share
your fitness journey on social media?
“The thing with Instagram is it’s always
going to be a snapshot of someone’s experience – it’s not going to ever show
anyone the full human experience of what that one person is going through.
“And then when you’re congratulated with
likes, and these positive strokes that the algorithm of Instagram can often
give us… that’s a whole other conversation to be had.
“But is Instagram the best place [to track
your progress]? Or would it be maybe working with your personal trainer or a
fitness coach and have that one-to-one relationship where you can also get that
offline support?”
How does exercise benefit your mental health?
“Exercise helps me to realise how strong I
am, [that I can] achieve certain milestones and challenges I’ve set myself. But
also on a day-to-day maintenance basis, it helps me to get out any pent-up
stress.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a
really sweaty, hardcore HIIT session four times a week. It can be literally
just doing movement in my room, just doing some yoga and sun salutations for 20
minutes or whatever.”
Some people still believe you can’t be fit or
healthy if you’re not a certain size, what would you say to those people?
“Fitness doesn’t look like one thing. The fat
on your body doesn’t determine your fitness level, although we’ve been told for
years that is the case through movies that show larger actors as the sloppy
ones, the messy, dirty, lazy ones.
“There’s a lot of very ‘skinny fat’ people
that are internally not very healthy. They might have fast metabolisms but are
on a McDonald’s diet. You might assume that they are really, really healthy.
They must workout, their life must be perfect. And I think it’s about changing
that narrative.”
What are the most encouraging kind of
messages you receive?
“I think it’s really beautiful that people
share their stories [such as] really harrowing experiences they’ve had, that
have really destroyed them at times.
“Even mums that share my profile with their
daughters, or women that have said, ‘We’ve got into running because of your
experience,’ or ‘I went to the gym for the first time’, or send me pictures of
them wearing shorts.
“Or ‘I wore that bra that you recommended and
it’s changed the way I wear a top, because I’ve been shopping the wrong bras
for so long’. Things like that make me feel really, really proud.”