FITSPO

So maybe I have been under a rock but I just heard about this whole "thinspo" ban from pinterest, tumblr, instagram etc.

I was never into "thinspo" because I don't want to look like a stick.

Example of thinspo

BUT NOW they are talking about if fitspo is also a negative thing.

Example of fitspo 

There are mixed emotions about fitspo. I personally think that it is beneficial to me. I don't beat myself up and it doesn't make me have an unhealthy view of my body or make me do crazy things like starve myself. It motivates me to go to the gym which I need to be doing.

This is from the new york times about fitspo being the new thinspo

"But in our rush to focus on health -- or at least the perceived appearance of health -- we’re simply setting up a new idealized figure to chase after, and not necessarily one that is any better for us.

What kind of monster is against health? This kind, I suppose. While I mightily dig the notion of individuals deciding what health means for them, and making whatever efforts they feel comfortable with to achieve that sensation, I do not think that fitspo images are actually advocating for broad individually-based standards of healthiness. 

Quite the opposite: They advocate for a specific shape of health, and one that is possibly more damaging than thinspo ever was, because it is making “health” into an issue of appearance and not of how one feels or what one can do or what one’s laboratory findings say."

Think about it: “She looks so unhealthy!” has become a tricky insult couched in faux concern, levied at thin women and fat women alike. It’s really a semi-polite way of telling someone they are unattractive without calling them straight-up ugly, and cushioned by the assertion that we’re telling you this for your own good. 

But, tellingly, we don’t do it the other way around. Nobody says, “Wow dude, she looks sooooo healthy. I bet her arteries are as smooth as marble and her resting heart rate is like, seven. I would kill for cardiovascular efficiency like that.”

Can we please stop using "healthy" as a code word for "attractive"? 

It is one thing to use other people’s stories and experiences to motivate oneself to feel as healthy as one possibly can; it’s another thing altogether to erase all the multitudinous factors that make up “health” and replace them with a picture of a woman from a Nike ad. Fitspo is no improvement on thinspo; if anything it’s more insidious because it exploits a concept we’re all obsessed with -- our health -- to create a new unattainable, damaging beauty ideal. " 

I would like to say that the author of this article is very overweight and I have to say that her opinion is HER opinion which is fine but I don't agree with her. She needs to understand that being overweight may be beautiful but it is medically proven to not be HEALTHY. I may not look like these ladies in the fitspo I post but I am going to try hard to be healthy and I will be happy with whatever I look like. They are inspiration to be the best I can be not to be their twin. 

Lets get real Lesley what is better trying to be healthy and and chasing after an idealized figure while losing these risks???? 

OR being fat, killing yourself with obesity, and claiming its because you don't want to try to force yourself to look like the model in the Nike ad? 

I chose to find my health motivation in ways that help me be a better me and if FITSPO can do that then I am all for it! I get that you are talking about appearance vs. health but the image of health is pretty uniform... I mean all bodies are different but if I am being the healthiest I can be I am not gonna weigh in at 275 pounds AM I? If am being the healthiest I can be I am not going to have a huge gut and wear a size 22 pant. 

You can't sit there and say that because its about appearance its wrong... there is a specific appearance to health. 

IT LOOKS LIKE THIS