#47 Gill & Andrew. The Body Image Industry

It's one of the questions we're asked most often, especially around our strength courses. Will I lose weight? Will I tone up? Will this change my body?

In this episode, Andrew and I go for a walk and talk through the many reasons why we deliberately avoid making those promises.

We talk about growing up in the 90s and the era of Heat magazine, celebrity "circle of shame" features and the diet culture, before exploring how today's fitness industry continues to market health through insecurity, before-and-after photos and unrealistic body ideals.

Drawing on Andrew's experience working in commercial gyms and then moving into public health, we discuss the difference between pain-point marketing and what the evidence tells us about lasting behaviour change. 

We ramble around a few bit and touch on bodybuilding, social media, steroids, GLP-1 drugs, optimisation culture, AI-generated fitness content.

Rather than asking "How can I change my body?", perhaps a better question is:

"What do I want my body to help me do?"

In this episode

• Why WildStrong doesn't use before-and-after photos

• Growing up with 1990s diet culture and celebrity magazines

• How commercial gyms are taught to market through people's insecurities

• Pain points versus opportunity: what behaviour change research actually says

• The illusion of control in modern fitness culture

• Orthorexia, optimisation and the "spreadsheetification" of health

• Why today's physique standards are so different from previous generations

• Steroids, bodybuilding and changing expectations

• Hugh Jackman, Hollywood and social media physiques

• GLP-1 drugs, AI influencers and the future of body image

• What people really mean when they ask if a programme will "tone" them

• Why capability may be a more meaningful goal than aesthetics

Mentioned in this episode

• Heat magazine's "Circle of Shame"

• Kate Winslet and media coverage following Titanic

• Joe Wicks

• Eugene Sandow

• Mr Universe and Mr Olympia

• Hugh Jackman

• GLP-1 medications (including Ozempic)

• Orthorexia

• COM-B behaviour change model

• Social determinants of health

• Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle

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Thank you!