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Old 08-24-16, 07:17 PM  
hch
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Thumbs up "Some fitness experts seek to end drill-sergeant putdowns"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fitness-e...211617831.html

I recently found this article while searching for news on fitness instructors. I don't like the headline, but it seems to be widely used, and I never found any version that has a title that completely satisfies me.

Some excerpts:

Quote:
"Body shaming and focusing on appearance and comparing yourself to other people, we absolutely know that's harmful for women," said Renee Engeln, a Northwestern University psychology professor who has been studying messaging in fitness classes.

"The more you're exercising to look good or to lose weight, the less you tend to enjoy it, the less you tend to stick with it. Whereas women who exercise because of how it makes them feel — healthier, stronger, less stressed — they tend to get more out of exercise and they tend to stick with it longer."
Compare this to the VF Community Guidelines: "Video Fitness prefers to focus on exercise for health and improved self esteem. Though many VF readers are trying to lose weight, we feel that keeping the focus on exercise and performance goals, rather than on diet or weight loss goals, is the best way to help our community members achieve success and stick to their workout programs."

Half of the women surveyed by Engeln hate such comments as those about getting a "bikini body," looking like some celebrity, or using exercise as "punishment" for having dessert. (The article also quotes a woman who, while not entirely rejecting "vanity," stopped going to barre classes at a particular studio because of all the "bikini body" talk there.)

Quote:
But it's a difficult shift for instructors to make, particularly because the lingo is so ingrained not just in the fitness world, but with the rise of social media where body photos are relentlessly dissected.

The instructors in the Northwestern study denied making these types of comments "but the women we surveyed were like, 'no, we hear it a lot.' So there's a real disconnect there," Engeln said.
I don't find it too hard to believe that some instructors say such things so "naturally" that they honestly don't remember having said them.

I do like the mention of an initiative to use more supportive language, and I wish the best for such efforts.
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"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

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body positivity, body shaming, instructors

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