Gymshark basically broke the internet last week when they released a picture of a woman wearing one of their sets. But get ready for it. This woman…was NOT ridiculously lean. WOW.
Literally, the way people reacted, she may as well have been completely naked. The comments were shocking, and to be honest, a bit of a reality check as to how far we have to come as a society.
Unsurprisingly, most of the negative comments were from men. If you want to look through them, do so at your own discretion. I saw enough of what I needed to see to fuel the fire for this blog post, and as far as I’m concerned, they don’t even deserve a mention.
But even the ‘positive’ ones were kind of backhanded…
“We all start somewhere *clap emoji*”.
Although this is well intended, this reinforces a disappointing truth about a lot of peoples’ view of exercise. That it is for weight loss. What if this woman was exercising for her health, mental and physical? Or for genuine enjoyment? What if she honestly didn’t care whether she lost weight because of it? What if she was happy with how her body looked now?
Surely, this is a healthier and longer lasting form of motivation?
Let’s also remember, and this may shock a few people, that relatively, exercise is an inefficient method of weight loss. Yes. I said it. And here’s why.
Most people exercise for, let’s say an hour a day, being very optimistic. Let’s also say that your average person is awake from 7am until 10pm. Minus the hour of exercise, that leaves another 14 hours in the day where this person could influence their weight loss, be it positively or negatively. This is why nutrition and non-exercise activity is so important in weight loss goals. If exercise is the only thing someone does to lose weight, it will be an uphill battle. However, if the same person chooses to walk more, or starts to pay closer attention to their nutrition habits that may be offsetting their weight loss goals, they’ll be a lot more effective at losing weight. Exercise is a method of creating a calorie deficit. But there are better ones. There is a reason that body builders gradually introduce low intensity cardiovascular exercise when prepping for a show, but will reduce their calories much earlier. Nutritional interventions need to be the focus. You don’t need to spend hours on the treadmill, or even worse, walking sideways up that damn stair master where you hate every second – trust me, been there done that. Would not recommend. You need to establish long term lifestyle and nutrition changes that are easy and sustainable and make the process, dare I say it, enjoyable.
But don’t exercise to punish yourself for not looking the way you want. Exercise because it makes you feel good, because you (want to) feel fit, and because the physical health benefits make the rest of your life easier, at the very least.
As I said, I understand that the comments were intended positively, but the impact is actually reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes of females being ‘small’, as well as the key motivation for exercise being for weight loss. Recognise the celebration of all body types. Fitness isn’t reserved for the small and lean. Fitness is for everyone. And the Gymshark post has celebrated just that.
Side note... there were also comments about the fact that all the male Gymshark models still look like something out of a Marvels movie. Because God forbid they put up a picture of a ‘normal’ bodied female BEFORE they put up a picture of a ‘normal’ bodied male to justify it. Get a grip. Give them time. I genuinely feel like this is the start of a new era for Gymshark. It doesn’t happen overnight. My inner feminist is SCREAMING at comments like that. But that’ll come later. And probably after I’ve finished Invisible Women (an incredible book by Caroline Criado Perez about the gender data gap) and I have more to talk about…