Before and After Photos; the darker side of fitness marketing
Last month, a friend sent me a screenshot of a post that had appeared on her social media feed. It was a "before and after" photo shared by a fitness company, accompanied by a message that read, "Gillian* lost 5 inches in 6 weeks. And you can too!"
My friend’s message read: "It's so toxic! I'm increasingly filled with anger about the time and energy I've wasted in my life battling with my body."
She has every right to be angry about it. Using weight loss as a hook for your business is a race to bottom.
It’s an easy trap to fall into and one that is still taught as an effective marketing tool in some of the leading Personal Training courses in the UK and the US. Hook people (but let’s be honest, mostly women) in with a 6 week offer of HIIT workouts and a restrictive nutrition plan. Let them complete the challenge, lose some weight then go back to normal life and regain the weight. Lure them back in for another 6 week challenge.
It’s a cycle that only works by repeatedly preying on people’s insecurities and pushing a programme that is unsustainable for the long term.
I've been sitting on this post for a few weeks now, trying to pinpoint why it makes me so angry.
I recently wrote a blog expressing my disdain for "6-week weight loss plans" and the concept of "falling off the fitness wagon." My aversion to these ideas is straightforward—they are misleading. They propose a world where the only thing standing between us and good health is an ironclad determination. While it's possible to gradually change our behaviours over time and make lasting changes, the notion that this can happen in 6 weeks oversimplifies all the reasons why most of us struggle to engage in physical activity consistently.
But the use of comparison photos carry a darker and bleak undertone - to me, they encapsulate everything that's unhealthy about the fitness and wellness industries.
I've hesitated with this article because I reached a point where I wondered if I might be belittling the efforts of those in comparison photos. I don’t think I am, or at least I'm doing my best not to. If someone has been working hard to shed weight for months, why shouldn't they celebrate their achievements? If you want to share photos of yourself now and four months ago in your underwear, go ahead!
But, it's a very different story when a business posts these photos on behalf of others.
In marketing, these photos are called "social triggers," designed to provoke specific feelings or actions in those who view them. The "after" image is presented as desirable, and the "before" as less so.
Social Triggers are great if you have a product as you can show life before and after - like a soap advert with a grubby football kit, then a shiny clean one once it’s been washed with some snazzy soap.
But for bodies? It feels extremely dangerous to anchor our self-worth to something as uncontrollable and unpredictable as our physical appearance. Particularly because how we look seldom reflects our overall well-being.
As women, and most of these photos are of women, we are brought up surrounded by a marketing industry that constantly shows us airbrushed photos of “perfect bodies” and we spend most of our lives comparing our bodies to those of others.
This is particularly true for those of us who were teenagers in the 90’s - the media then was extremely toxic. My friend reminded me of publications like Heat magazine and the "circle of shame," relentlessly capturing and showcasing images of cellulite or running articles on celebrities gaining weight. It all revolved around the damaging notion that being "fat" equated to being "bad" and these standards deeply impacted a whole generation’s body image and self-worth.
Remember the Special K Diet? It was promoted in mainstream TV, sometimes even aired during cartoons, advocating eating cereal twice a day for two weeks to drop a dress size. Our formative years were saturated with a media and diet culture that was particularly grim and relentless.
Using before and after photos of our peers just reinforces these unhealthy comparisons, and fuels weight stigma and anti-fat bias, leaving little room for weight fluctuations. As well as presented a skewed and incomplete narrative, depicting only two moments in time.
Andrew has memories of being asked to take these photos of clients early on in his career as a PT. He always refused “because it felt predatory.” I pressed him a bit on this and he said “I always felt that it implied that the body they were in at the moment was bad - and what happens to all those people whose bodies don't change?”
In the 80s and 90s, all we had were polaroid cameras in the gyms so perhaps a before and after photo is all you could do to show your progress…? Now we have access to video - why not use clips of people progressing in skills or confidence?
As a trainer, you have the capacity to change someone’s relationship with physical activity. You can teach them how to move with confidence, how these movements will set them up for the rest of their lives and continue to open doors for them.
You could show videos of people being frightened to lift something heavy but gaining confidence once you’ve shown them how. Or maybe you’ve got them vaulting and falling - perhaps it was terrifying to begin with but over time, their confidence has gone through the roof.
If we’re in the business of marketing to people to sell our services, it’s our responsibility to shift the narrative away from weight loss and help people build a long term positive relationship with physical activity.
The messaging for your next marketing campaign could be:
Move because it…
makes you stronger,
gives you time outside,
expands your options in life,
makes you feel amazing,
gets you out of the house,
allows you time with your friends,
boosts your sex drive,
allows you to see yourself improving at something.
And perhaps, along the way, you'll shed some weight, or perhaps you won't. But you don’t need to talk about any of that.
Many thanks to all those who helped with this article. I put up some questions in our Stories on Instagram last month and I’ve tried to thread in as much as possible from your comments into the above. Particular thanks to Sarah and Emma for your input.
What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts.
