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When motivation hurts

when motivation hurts {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com
when motivation hurts {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com

I’m taking my normal “gear myself up for the week” post a different direction today. Let’s talk about some of the harmful motivation on Pinterest and Tumblr and then how we can better evaluate the images we share.

As a note, I found all of these images by searching “motivation” on Pinterest. I have purposefully not linked them back. I also searched for motivation tips either showing or directed at men because I fully understand these concerns are not limited to women as portrayed in the images below. The search resulted primarily in scantily clad woman (surprise) and the few images of men that included quotes or tips were actually pretty good. We could take a lesson on the types of messages that should go on pictures of woman too.

1. Pain and guilt

The problem here is obvious. Pain tells you “hey, something’s wrong here, I might get injured.” Not listening to pain is how I’ve damaged my knees and pulled muscles. Learn the difference between pushing through a tough workout and ignoring serious signals from your body.

And know that breaks are good! We don’t need to feel guilty about a rest day or rest week, or time off to heal from injury or to recover from illness.

2. The wrong reasons

I could get on a very large soap box here and write about how I cringe each time I see the thousands of images like these, but I’ll keep it brief. To make someone like you more is pretty shitty motivation. To play upon someone else’s insecurity and/or make them jealous is even worse.

These also fuel the idea that we have to attain a certain type or level of fitness to be “hot,” attractive or worthy of jealousy. Absolutely nothing about this message is positive or motivational.

3. Hatred

These images encourage body hatred, plain and simple. Just look at that list! Collarbone, hip bone, thigh gap. The final “do it for yourself” point looks thrown in to make the image not that horrible. Or the top right: cry over a body you hate. And the bottom left image is a plain lie. Many of us can never be that in months because our bodies aren’t built that way.

I don’t want to judge body hatred itself. It’s a real emotion many of us – myself included – face every day! “Motivational” images that play on those insecurities do not help us work through body hatred in the least.

Positivity goal

As much as Pinterest and Tumblr are full of unhealthy “motivational” posters, there are plenty of great ones as well. I just encourage you to take a little time to evaluate before sharing:

• Does the image make me like myself?
• Does the tip sound like something my doctor would recommend?
• Would I give this advice to someone else / my child / a friend?

My plan going forward is if I can answer “no” to any of these questions I won’t share the image. Please join me in a commitment to sharing positive messages and encouraging healthy views of our bodies. 🙂

Have you ever felt discouraged by a “motivational” image or tip?

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A dark side of health bloggers

A dark side of health bloggers {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com}
A dark side of health bloggers {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com}

My bubble of “healthy-living bloggers are such a supportive and positive community” was just popped.

As happens so often on the internet, I was caught in a rabbit trail that led to me to Get Off My Internets, a forum site dedicated to venting and skewering bloggers. I then spent more time than I want to admit reading through forum pages of some big healthy living and running blogs.

I am ashamed.

I only scanned the forums for blogs I know. Many of them are long gone from my personal reader for various reasons. I even agreed with a lot of what I read. Or at least ended up agreeing. The power of suggestion went something like this: Oh yeah, I guess that is annoying. It always bothered me when {blank} wrote {blank}. Now I know why. Even worse: I understand how {blank} could be irritating, but I never noticed. Except now I will. Every time.

It seems I have avoided a dark corner of the internet until now. I understand discussion and disagreement on the internet as a form of social learning and development. Previously private conversations now play out on a grand scale online. Hello comment sections! Many times I learn more scanning through comments than I do from an article itself, despite some horrible things people say behind online anonymity.

Some of the forums hit on important questions, like “do healthy-living blogs encourage disordered eating and workout obsessions”? Um, yes. I would love to have that conversation!

Do fitness blogs encourage workout obsessions? {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com} Do health blogs encourage disordered eating? {PilotingPaperAirplanes.com}

Other comments raised concerns about whether specific bloggers are actually healthy. This isn’t really anyone’s business besides them and their doctor… but I’m willing to give a pass here with reservations. When you read a blog for a long time, you pick up trends. When a blogger starts to take a seemingly negative turn, regular readers notice. Is this worth discussion in a public forum? I’m not convinced, but it does raise some concern that a blogger with a lot of social influence could hurt readers in the process.

What made me hang my head in shame was the general bitching:

• “I hate how she writes with. so. many. periods.”
• “All she does is whine and complain, I can’t stand it.”
• “I’m so tired of reading how she’s the perfect Christian SAHM who gets to run every day.”

And the kickers that get a rise out of me so fast:

• “I never thought she had a great body anyway.”
• “She thinks she’s way better looking than she is.”
• “Why does she always wear pants like that? They make her legs look awful!”

EXCUSE ME??

….

There are no words. I’ve been staring that this screen for several minutes and still don’t have anything short of a full-out scream fest in response.

The worst part is these forums are often started and maintained by other health bloggers. People who [should] sure as hell know better. Who [should] understand how much those words really matter. It is pretty evident in the forums that many of the bloggers themselves keep tabs. So not only are we bashing and shaming these people, we’re doing it knowing they are likely to read it. And we’re announcing that its OK to belittle someone with such a lack of basic respect.

The solution is stunningly simple: you don’t like a blog anymore, don’t read it. The opinions you can keep to yourself – or at least behind the privacy of email with friends, not a public forum. Good gracious. If you can’t say something nice…?

My happy online corner of beautiful people accomplishing extraordinary things full of encouragement and support just had a dark shadow creep in. Pardon me while I go watch these adorable goats playing. And some JLaw funny moments. Maybe some Benedict Cumberbatch clips. I need to find a happy place again.

Your turn:
Are these forums valuable?
What serious conversations should fitness/health/lifestyle bloggers be having?
Am I simply overreacting?

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