The Unseen Problem with Fitness Jokes and Body Image - Ep 94

What if the very fitness activities you love are subtly promoting a harmful mindset about food? What if the jokes you hear about 'earning' meals and 'burning off' indulgences aren't as harmless as they seem? Join me, Christine, in this solo episode where we talk about the intertwined issues of food, fitness, and body image.

This episode isn't about pointing fingers, instead, it’s about fostering understanding and promoting change. We'll explore how seemingly innocent jokes can trigger feelings of guilt, shame, and judgment in those battling with body image and weight struggles. We'll also delve into how we can break this harmful connection and cultivate healthier and more positive mindsets in our fitness routines and daily lives. This is an essential listen for fitness instructors, fitness enthusiasts, and anyone seeking to foster a healthier relationship with food and their body. Pack your preconceived notions at the door; it's time to break body bias.
(Recorded December 2023)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Welcome to episode 94 of the Breaking Body Bias' podcast. Christine, here your host. It is the holiday season, so I wanted to bring you another episode talking about separating food from fitness, because I know a lot of people have a lot of feelings on this topic and I think that there is this sentiment that we can be overly sensitive in this area and that we're being politically correct or soft. But I want to help point out a different perspective when it comes to talking about food and fitness together. You know we've all heard jokes maybe we've even been one to joke about burning off our calories that we ate. You had a really indulgent evening and then you go to bed and say, ah, I've got to burn off all these calories. Or you've gone into a situation where you're having dinner and you're like, oh, I've got to earn this, so that morning I'm going to do a double workout. Or I'm not going to eat anything all day to save up calories for that meal. I mean, there's so many different ways to put that together, but the main idea is that we joke around about how we've overindulged, so we've got to burn it off. And while some people may think it's just a joke and it's funny. You might even have heard many fitness instructors say that from the front of the class and for a lot of people it has absolutely no effect, nothing at all, like it doesn't bother them. They hear it, they might laugh. They probably don't have any feelings about it, but I would bet that those people that it has no effect on then they think it's like oh it's funny. Ha, they probably have never struggled. They probably have never struggled with their body, with their body image, with weight, with any of that. And that's what makes it challenging, because you don't know when you're teaching a class or if you're in a fitness class like you don't look around the room, you don't really know who has struggled, because someone could be struggling with their body image and look like what you think is an ideal body type. And there are people that have not the ideal body type, that aren't struggling because they've put in the work in order to feel loving to their bodies and acceptance and some neutrality. In some way. All those things help with body image. So we don't have any idea just by looking at someone if they've struggled, if they've experienced trauma, if they've experienced any kind of weight stigma, if they've experienced shame or judgment or guilt, and we don't really know at all. So, in this regard, breaking that connection will help make sure that no one is harmed.

Speaker 1: 4:18

And while making a joke may make a handful of people laugh, what it might also do is cause a person or several people in your class to a not come back to your class again because they felt triggered or they felt ashamed of themselves or they felt bad about the decisions that they've made, or they feel bad. Same is true with someone teaching a class and saying this is what you should be doing, and if you're not doing that, you feel less that right. So this is what can happen in fitness when we're not careful about the words that we use or the coaching that we put out there, or even the movement patterns. Even the actual programming that we provide for people can be harmful. So what can we do? We can break that connection. We can remove the jokes, because again it perpetuates this idea that the knowledge of I think the truth is driving us to end the.

Speaker 1: 5:22

We're all trying to shrink our bodies or we're all trying to look a certain way, or to be thinner or be smaller, and it's a very toxic message. It's very toxic. So what can we do to eliminate that? In fitness and in our own lives, we can promote a positive mindset, and it all starts with ourselves, like if we can get to a place where we can be less judgmental and offer ourselves more compassion, that's a good start. That's a good start, and can we take an approach to fitness that fitness is going to help us be stronger. Fitness is going to help us be better people. Fitness is going to help us be happier, be better parents, be better friends, be better kids, be better employees and just be better humans.

Speaker 1: 6:27

When we're able to have that kind of mindset around movement and not trading our food for fuel in order to work out, or we're trading our calories in calories out, so that way we don't gain weight, we live in fear of gaining weight, all those things. When we can take this approach, we have a much better relationship with food, with our body, with movement and with people around us, and I think the key to doing this is providing or creating a supportive community. So right here on the Breaking Body Bias podcast, we have a very supportive community. We have a community on Facebook that encourages each other, that challenges each other and that leads with inclusivity and neutrality when it comes to our weight, and encouraging joyful movement, encouraging intuitive eating. All these things you can find with our community, and if you want to create your own, I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to surround yourself with people that are supporting you in your journey. Surround yourself with family and friends and maybe encouraging more people around you. Maybe you are going to be the community leader in this area. Maybe you are going to be the one in your family to help shed some light on this topic and help more people, maybe around the holidays, talk less about other people's bodies. Maybe, if you are looking at some of the younger people in your family and you're seeing how they're being affected by conversations around food and exercise and our bodies around the holidays, maybe you can be that support and that's what I encourage you to do to really challenge the societal norms when it comes to burning off your calories and instead start taking a neutral approach to your workout.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Think about all the benefits of fitness beyond the exterior and uncouple your food from your fitness and see how things start to shift. Are you able to enjoy the foods that you eat? Because, let's face it, food is way more than fuel, especially around the holidays. Food is family, food is tradition, it's your culture, it's delicious and it should be enjoyed and it should be something that you don't feel bad about no shame, no guilt, no judgment. And when you go and do a workout, enjoy it. I mean you may not be smiling the whole time. Workouts can be challenging. I recently did a pump class and I don't think I was smiling ever in that class, but I felt the music and I felt like I was getting stronger and I felt so successful at the end of every single song and then I felt some soreness the next day, which was a good feeling.

Speaker 1: 9:44

But I encourage you to take this approach this holiday season and beyond, because as we get into the throws of the holiday season, the messaging around shame and guilt is going to get louder and louder and louder until it's at a decibel that we can barely even tune out by January. That messaging in January is going to drive a lot of people back into fitness spaces. But is it going to drive them back for good reasons? Is it going to really drive them back for for any length of time? Because typically what happens in the fitness industry is that January is crowded, there's no equipment, classes are full and gyms are hopping Two weeks into the new year, not so much.

Speaker 1: 10:40

People fall by the wayside. They have lost their willpower or their determination and they, they stop coming and for many, when leaving, they leave with trauma, they leave with feeling worse than when they came in. So I don't want you to feel that way. I want you to go into January feeling confident, feeling like you don't have to get yourself back in shape. You can just move and you can feel good about your body and feel good about your body in December and January and February and beyond. So please take this message uncouple your food from your workouts and, if you're enjoying your life, take out all the shame, judgment and lead with love.

Speaker 1: 11:37

I hope you like this episode and you're able to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Breaking Body Biases Podcast. If you know someone that would be a great guest, be sure to direct them to breakingbodybiasescom, always looking for guests to share their story, to share their experiences, to share what they're doing, to help change the narrative and change this toxicity that is in fitness that we see today. So if you know someone, direct them my way and, of course, go back to the website, check out the show notes with links to all the things we talk about on the show, to my on demand workouts, which will always lead with love, and lead with joy Versus shame and judgment. For right now, you can enjoy all of our on demand workouts and some new live workouts. Check out the show notes for all the links and I'll see you next week with a brand new episode.