Dear Fitness Community

It’s NEDA week, so let’s take this opportunity to talk. Eating disorders kill. They have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses.

And yet, the fitness industry continues to sell and celebrate disordered relationships with food and exercise. This includes:

🚫 posting before/after pictures
🚫 using fat phobic language
🚫 counting calories & macros
🚫 labeling foods as good/bad
🚫 equating health with thinness
🚫 ignoring genetics, body diversity, & privilege
🚫 prioritizing weight loss over actual fitness
🚫 obsessing over calorie & fat burn
🚫 promoting diets & detoxes
🚫 celebrating overexercise & under eating
🚫ignoring bodily signals, intuition, & boundaries
🚫 & so much more, unfortunately

The industry glorifies and praises these things under the guise of “healthy living,” “wellness,” and “discipline.”

We must take responsibility & look critically at our content, advice, & guidance, as well as our own relationships with food & exercise.

Many of us in the fitness industry found ourselves here due to our own disorders and struggles (yes, years ago, myself included). Let’s do better not to pass on our own struggles to the people we are meant to help and serve.

Before you write, post, or speak, ask yourself — “Is this truly helpful and healthy, or is it fueling disordered and harmful habits?”

WE NEED TO DO BETTER.

Love,
Melissa, CPT, RYT, ED recovered