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My Experience

  • Writer: Molly Olney
    Molly Olney
  • Jun 10, 2021
  • 3 min read

Learn about my experience with fitspiration and body image!


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When I learned the term fitspiration a couple month ago, I immediately knew I had felt the negative effects from viewing fitspiration posts and following fitspiration accounts.


I have struggled with my body image for as long as I can remember. I vividly remember making comparisons to my girls in my class as early as the third grade. I was dissatisfied with how my body looked compared to other girls as an eight-year-old. Since the day my twin sister and I were born, I have been bigger than her and constantly compared myself to her. We were born on the same day just minutes apart and yet she was thin, and I wasn’t, she could eat anything and seem to get skinner and that wasn’t the case for me. I was always aware of how much food I was eating in comparison to her and how I always had to get bigger sizes than her when shopping. Thoughts about how my body looks are always on my mind. When I exercise, I’m striving to reach that thin ideal that not only I see on social media but that it appears many of my friends have achieved. I have and have had this idea that my body needs to change and that is it imperfect for most of my life.


When I began to work out more as I entered high school, I thought that running would fix all my body issues, but I hated running and was not good at it. I never saw the results I wanted, and I would just get frustrated. Throughout high school, I began following more fitness accounts to find good exercises and encourage myself to work out. I found what I thought were good accounts, and did some of their workouts but was never inspired to work out by the posts. One account I followed was Kayla Itsines who is an Australian fitness trainer and influencer. She is a naturally tall, thin, tan, and attractive woman whose body has always fit the thin ideal. Her posts are filled with before and after photos, workouts, and a community full of women attempting to achieve their fitness goals. It all seemed positive but when I heard the word fitspiration and about some of its negative effects, I knew Kayla’s account fit right into the category. I realized her account was not positively impacting me, in fact, it was negatively impacting me. I felt guilty when seeing her posts when I didn’t work out, many of the “motivational” captions were guilt-inducing and centered around weight loss for appearance-based reasons, and I was constantly reminded of the progress I wasn’t making. What I thought was a positive way to encourage me to exercise turned out to be another factor contributing to my negative body image and body dissatisfaction. For many women this is not the case. Kayla’s account and posts inspire them and have led them to achieve their fitness goals which is great! But I have just realized her content does not do that for me. I have since unfollowed Kayla Itsines and tried to follow more body positivity accounts that will increase my body satisfaction rather not decrease it.


I am currently on my journey to accepting my body and creating a positive image of my body. I still have a long way to go but this is the first step I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to research this topic and write this blog.

 
 
 

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Hi, I'm Molly Olney 

I'm a student at Washington State University studying Business Management- Human Resources and Psychology. As someone who struggles with body image, I am passionate about body positivity and mental health. Through this blog, I want to raise awareness to the negative effects the fitness side of social media can have on young women. 

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The opportunity exists to combine the body positivity movement with fitspiration to truly inspire people and not make people feel bad for the way they live their lives. Raising awareness of fitspiration will hopefully help people understand why their social media makes them feel the ways its does.

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