TikTok ‘fitspiration’ videos reinforce harmful gendered body ideals and often propagate bogus health information. A new study analysed a sample of 200 ‘fitspiration’ videos on TikTok. Most videos were by fitness influencers, and 60% were found to present incorrect or harmful information.
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/beware-of-toxic-tiktok-fitspo-videos
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I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144524000913
From the linked article:
As the Federal government considers banning social media for children, Flinders University researchers warn that TikTok ‘fitspiration’ videos reinforce harmful gendered body ideals and often propagate bogus health information. A new study analysed a sample of 200 ‘fitspiration’ videos on TikTok revealing concerning trends around the portrayal of fitness ideals, the credibility of health information and the qualifications of fitness influencers. Most videos were posted by fitness influencers, and 60 per cent of the videos were found to present incorrect or harmful information.
No offense but how is it wrong to portray a muscular and lean body as the ideal?
I’ve noticed something like that with ‘home remodeling’ videos. A startling amount of them are giving advice that is at best ‘landlord special’ quality work.
First define harmful information.
TikTok is a cesspool and shouldn’t be take seriously by any rational person.
“A notable gender disparity was present in the objectification portrayed in videos where female content frequently objectified specific body parts such as their thighs and buttocks, while male videos were more prone to obscure faces, a trend not seen in earlier studies of fitspiration on other platforms like Instagram.”
Maybe I haven’t seen enough fitness videos for men, but every single one I’ve seen “objectifies” male body parts too, lots of focus in biceps, chest and shoulders and then usually a joke about not forgetting leg day. I don’t think it’s a disparity as much as they focus on different muscle groups for men and women, and the fact that the study couldn’t identify this either means I am not watching the same fitness videos they are, or these researchers don’t really know what’s going on.
This science is blowing my mind.
Unless they have a relevant medical degree, don’t trust it. Even then, find other sources that supports their statements. Besides, anything any “influencer” says should be outright ignored. They’re hunting for clicks and followers, they want to be first, doesn’t matter if they’re right. Their entire reason for stating what they do is to either support advertisers or sell their own brand of products, or because it subjectively and with no evidence “worked for them”, which may not be true or even healthy for 99.99% of the people that watch their content.
least surprising result of all time
This was already obvious to anyone with a basic level of health/fitness knowledge.
Ya lost me at ‘harmful gendered’
Given that America has hit record levels of obesity, I wonder how widespread the impact of the “harm” is.
[https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-now-fattest-ever-obesity-145103059.html](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-now-fattest-ever-obesity-145103059.html)
Getting into fitness is very much finding out you’ve entered a series of minefields nobody warns you about. Body dysmorphia, trash supplements, influencers on Tren and other garbage pretending to be naturally fit and trim, gimmick products, MLM friends appearing with sus shakes. Learning some critical thinking skills and having a knowledge base to begin with, or a trusted partner, is the only way.