In today's world we’re always looking for quick ways to keep fit, eat healthily, burn fat and build muscle. We’re all (and I mean all of us), are looking for that perfect beach body as fast as possible. And for a lot of fitness enthusiasts that means cutting corners when it comes to time, money, effort, or other means to achieve the desired chiseled physique.
Gyms and fitness centers are more available and accessible now than they have ever been, and “training” has become part of everyday life for millions, if not billions of people around the world from all walks of life. It has changed modern society in many ways when it comes to food, fashion, popular culture, relationships, business, and countless other areas.
In this article, I’m going to discuss the reasons why exercise and body sculpting has become so popular.
Muscle In The Media
It’s not unnatural to associate exercise, muscle growth and fat burning with the media. Why? Because images and stories of our favorite celebrities are readily available and also making the headlines. Body image is one of the most important aspects to our lives, that thousands of people even idolize their favorite media celebrities and have aspirations to be just like them.
If you visit your closest newsagents or store, it won’t be uncommon to see very popular gender specific publications taking the most prominent positions on the shelves. This only emphasizes my original thought that exercise, fitness and body image is increasingly important to us.
The media also covers Social Media, like; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat to name but a few of the social outlets that take up increasingly more space on our mobile phones. Being able to capture and share a workout, to some people would appear even more important than the act of actually training itself.
Ethical Muscle Growth
The process, or perhaps art of muscle growth and bodybuilding to some, has become more important than even their own long-term health. If you haven’t already worked it out, yes I’m about to dive into the interesting word of anabolic steroids.
With “the need” to look bigger, better and more defined becoming increasingly more important, the use or illegal substances and steroids enhancers has also increased. The rule book or benchmark for “what is acceptable” would appear to have been thrown out of the window and people are literally putting their lives at risk for what it their own eyes in the perfect physique.
I should state at this point, that I’m not a fan of illegal anabolic steroids, and at no point will I promote the use of such substances. Stay natural, stay lean, stay real. To further this point, I have even started documenting my own personal fitness and body sculpting journey.
With what you’ve just read in mind, do you think it’s right that we basically put celebrities on a pedestal and aspire to be just like them? Food for thought perhaps…
Training & Lifestyle
A few years ago (possibly more than I care the share), the way we used to fit exercise into our lifestyles was very different to today. I’ll simple refer to this as “the old” and “the new”. The old training method for the average Joe was to squeeze in an exercise or gym session towards the end of the day, after work, either on the way home or after the family evening meal.
The new way of training or integrating fitness into our daily lives, seems to be the complete opposite. With more fitness centers available our lives are more focused around staying fit and healthy and then fitting and making our work lives fit around this instead.
With more gyms and fitness centers available, many people (myself included), opt to workout first thing in the morning, before the sun has come and then again later in the day. With gym’s being more readily accessible, no longer do we need to travel great distances to be in a place where we can workout.
Knowledge Equals Power
Before we can successfully workout and see results, we need to know what we’re doing, and this is where the famous phrase comes in: “With knowledge, comes power”, the more information available, the more we know, and in most cases, the more we understand…
No longer is exercising and building lean muscle a “dark art” known only by those in close-nit circles. It wasn’t that long ago, that we (the general public) used to think that muscle growth and building a shredded physique meant spending hours in the gym, lifting weights we could barely imagine. The use of the internet has quite literally opened our eyes to the science behind achieving such gains.
Understanding nutrition and how our bodies absorbs and deals with fuel, for me has been one of the most important shifts in society when it comes to exercising and working to achieve and more defined physique.
Body Image In Society
Like every person I know or people I see in the gym, outside running or cycling etc. I want to look a certain way, to look “good”. If you compare society today with society about 30 years ago, being “slim” means something completely different.
When I’m talking about body image I’m not just referring to the size of someone’s waistline or how big their biceps are. Body image today is all encompassing. If I was to picture the modern day male gym enthusiast, he would be; lean, well defined, styled hair, well-groomed (head to toe), and would probably have a couple of tattoos on display. If you compare that to the previous two decades, tattoos weren’t mainstream at all hair styles were much bigger.
Male grooming is now just as important as female grooming, and that goes hand in hand with the image of a person’s body. As people, we are very quick to judge one another based on the way we look, because that’s what society and the media tells us to do… “That person needs to go on a diet”, or “That person needs to get a gym membership”. It sounds mean, but I can guarantee, at some point in your daily lives, a thought like these has come up at some point.
The point I’m trying to make is that, muscle growth, fitness and overall body image is driven by what society tells us it should be. We can easily sit back and disagree with that statement, but if you think about it properly you’ll see that even the most exercise adverse person will at some point during every day, look at themselves and think “I need to change this”, or, ‘I should stop doing that”.
What Should We Do?
There is no magic wand and magic pill we can use to get all the answers or build the body image of our dreams – it simple doesn’t exist.
What we can do starting immediately, is to start making small changes each day based on how we feel and what available in our surrounding environments. If you want to aspire to look like your favorite Hollywood superstar, then great. Don’t forget that the images you’ve seen in magazines and online has no doubt gone through a series of photo editing so they may not be 100% accurate.
Also, don’t forget that when you’ve seen a new film, during casting and filming the actors would have been put through their paces in the gym for last few months by a personal trainer. They would have also had a personal nutritionist who would have advised them on all of the right foods to eat during the day and at each phase of training to achieve the desired effect.
Does Society Impact Our Body Image?
For me personally, the answer to this is 100% YES! We may wish to deny it, but the truth is that we aspire to fit into society, and conform as much as possible. We’re bombarded with the “perfect body image” everywhere we look. But I guess the most important question we should be asking is – Is this a good or bad thing? I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. A person has the right and freedom to do and to be whomever they wish to be. Although society shows us what the perfect body looks like, it’s our choice whether we conform or not.
If you’ve seen any of my other articles or have read my personal story on “How I got Ripped”, you’ll see that I’m basically Mr Average and I fit right in the middle of societies image but that doesn’t dictate that you should too.
Body image is a personal choice – be happy, be yourself and do what you want to do! You do you!!
I hope you enjoyed this article about how training and muscle growth have changed our society.
Interested in more articles about frugal fitness?
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