Why I Love & Hate Pinterest
Following on from last week's first installment of Why I Love & Hate Pinterest, in which we focused on the 1st reason Pinterest could promote Warped Goals/Ideas, this post will have the 2nd and 3rd reasons...
Let's crack on.
“She
has an awesome figure!! Dammnit I need to workout 7 hours a day!”
All right, here’s another.
Ignore the spelling of ‘damn it’, it upsets me too.
Anyway, what have we got here? We have what looks to be a) an overreaction, and b) an unhealthy idea of how to achieve said body. It’s a confused idea of attainment, essentially.
I’m not going to bash seeing something, deciding you want it, and then setting out to achieve it. That’s awesome if you can find motivation easily like that. What’s worrying is the hideous misunderstanding of what the body needs to achieve certain goals.
Now, I’m aware this might be your typical hyperbolic “oh I’m so ___, it would take, like, a million bazillion years for me to get that ___”, but what if it’s not? Or, equally troubling, what if the person reading it doesn’t realise that and genuinely thinks you need to work out 7 hours a day to achieve the figure being referred to?
That’s worrying, right?
You see, there are some (many) people who come to Pinterest to find out more about a variety of subjects, and health & fitness is a big part of that. There’s so much information condensed into bitesize pictures and links that it’s a bit overwhelming, and often what catches the eye most are the inspirational bodies (think #fitspo, #fitspiration & #thinspiration – all popular tags), so whatever is attached to those pictures is going to be viewed by those coming for ideas/information.
This isn’t a major one, because the chances of someone taking it literally and going “7 hours a day? Screw that, I’m getting a cheeseburger” or “7 hours? Right, well it’s 3 now soooo… be back at 10” are slim. It’s a just in case, as that first person may never become a fit & healthy, active individual, and the second will probably overtrain and ruin their body.
So yeah, be sensible when you’re on Pinterest, guys – if someone says you need to work out for 7 hours a day then question it, if they say 15 minutes a week then question it.
Ignore the spelling of ‘damn it’, it upsets me too.
Anyway, what have we got here? We have what looks to be a) an overreaction, and b) an unhealthy idea of how to achieve said body. It’s a confused idea of attainment, essentially.
I’m not going to bash seeing something, deciding you want it, and then setting out to achieve it. That’s awesome if you can find motivation easily like that. What’s worrying is the hideous misunderstanding of what the body needs to achieve certain goals.
Now, I’m aware this might be your typical hyperbolic “oh I’m so ___, it would take, like, a million bazillion years for me to get that ___”, but what if it’s not? Or, equally troubling, what if the person reading it doesn’t realise that and genuinely thinks you need to work out 7 hours a day to achieve the figure being referred to?
That’s worrying, right?
You see, there are some (many) people who come to Pinterest to find out more about a variety of subjects, and health & fitness is a big part of that. There’s so much information condensed into bitesize pictures and links that it’s a bit overwhelming, and often what catches the eye most are the inspirational bodies (think #fitspo, #fitspiration & #thinspiration – all popular tags), so whatever is attached to those pictures is going to be viewed by those coming for ideas/information.
This isn’t a major one, because the chances of someone taking it literally and going “7 hours a day? Screw that, I’m getting a cheeseburger” or “7 hours? Right, well it’s 3 now soooo… be back at 10” are slim. It’s a just in case, as that first person may never become a fit & healthy, active individual, and the second will probably overtrain and ruin their body.
So yeah, be sensible when you’re on Pinterest, guys – if someone says you need to work out for 7 hours a day then question it, if they say 15 minutes a week then question it.
“#skinny;
#perfect; #flat stomach; #abs; #toned; #jealous; #want; #thinspiration;
#motivation; #legs; #thigh gap”
So, final example. Let’s assess the situation.
All of those were tags on one post and immediately a few pop out as uh-oh moments –
All of those were tags on one post and immediately a few pop out as uh-oh moments –
- · Skinny
- · Perfect
- · Jealous
- · Want
- · Thigh gap
Firstly, if your fitness goal is to become ‘skinny’ and not ‘healthy’ then that’s an issue.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
Result when I googled ‘skinny’ Result when I googled ‘healthy’
I have to admit, if I saw 'girl to the left' (didn't think it appropriate to use names) coming toward me
I’d be tempted to offer her a meal, whilst 'girl to the right' would make me
realise I don’t work out all that
hard and I could be healthier. Hey,
that’s just me though. All I know is, statistically speaking, 'girl to the right' is probably less likely to get osteoporosis, less likely to have an eating
disorder, more likely to a live a longer & fuller life, and most likely has
a far more usable and functional body, among other things.
Secondly, attributing the word ‘perfect’ to the lady on the left there is a fairly terrifying depiction of perfection. Furthermore, attributing perfection to a body type is pretty unhealthy, as is attempting to attain perfection, because it won’t happen and that will ruin your self-confidence.
Thirdly, being jealous of someone because of their body type, whilst common, is not advisable. Perhaps being envious isn’t as bad, but ultimately seeing something you want (another word tagged) should be motivating, not inspire jealousy, because jealousy doesn’t usually lead to a betterment of self, rather a desire to worsen another (like Shakespeare, amirite?).
Fourthly, in case you aren’t familiar with the trend, a thigh gap is simply being able to see daylight between a girls legs from toe to *ahem*, where there is no touching of the thighs (when stood normally, obviously anyone can just separate their legs). Now, I don’t advocate this as a fitness goal because, ultimately, if your legs are that small then you probably don’t have much muscle mass, and could potentially have an unhealthily-low body fat percentage (this is different for women than it is for men – see here) which can cause hormonal issues such as amenorrhea.
I pretty much always advocate the usage of exercises, where appropriate, such as squats, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, etc., and these exercises are almost certain to build up that inner-thigh area with functional and important muscle (adductor longus and gracilis are what you’ll find there, for adduction and abduction). If your goal is to actually remove any form of muscle or fat from that specific area then you’re probably going to be inclined to swerve those types of exercise, which is such a mistake for anyone whose true goal is to be fit, strong, and healthy.
So maybe don’t set ‘having a thigh gap’ as a training goal, it could conflict with other, more important, goals.
Secondly, attributing the word ‘perfect’ to the lady on the left there is a fairly terrifying depiction of perfection. Furthermore, attributing perfection to a body type is pretty unhealthy, as is attempting to attain perfection, because it won’t happen and that will ruin your self-confidence.
Thirdly, being jealous of someone because of their body type, whilst common, is not advisable. Perhaps being envious isn’t as bad, but ultimately seeing something you want (another word tagged) should be motivating, not inspire jealousy, because jealousy doesn’t usually lead to a betterment of self, rather a desire to worsen another (like Shakespeare, amirite?).
Fourthly, in case you aren’t familiar with the trend, a thigh gap is simply being able to see daylight between a girls legs from toe to *ahem*, where there is no touching of the thighs (when stood normally, obviously anyone can just separate their legs). Now, I don’t advocate this as a fitness goal because, ultimately, if your legs are that small then you probably don’t have much muscle mass, and could potentially have an unhealthily-low body fat percentage (this is different for women than it is for men – see here) which can cause hormonal issues such as amenorrhea.
I pretty much always advocate the usage of exercises, where appropriate, such as squats, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, etc., and these exercises are almost certain to build up that inner-thigh area with functional and important muscle (adductor longus and gracilis are what you’ll find there, for adduction and abduction). If your goal is to actually remove any form of muscle or fat from that specific area then you’re probably going to be inclined to swerve those types of exercise, which is such a mistake for anyone whose true goal is to be fit, strong, and healthy.
So maybe don’t set ‘having a thigh gap’ as a training goal, it could conflict with other, more important, goals.
I think that’s more than enough of me for one post!
I’ll be back next week with part 3 in the Why I Love & Hate Pinterest series – poor understanding of realistic attainment part 1!
I’ll be back next week with part 3 in the Why I Love & Hate Pinterest series – poor understanding of realistic attainment part 1!
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