Fitness influencers have created a culture that quantifies the self through valuing only physical results and numbers, both on a scale and amount of likes, instead of prioritizing healthy fitness goals. Instagram has become a huge platform for users to follow fitness ‘influencers’ to receive advice and workout plans to achieve their fitness goals. Influencers carry power and persuasion on Instagram, as explained by Serazio & Duffy, “... there are “opinion leaders” found in every social network that facilitate the outreach of those mass media messages...Such individuals are imbued with significant “social” or “subcultural” capital, depending on the theoretical formulation (7). The top 20 fitness influencers on Instagram have over 90 million followers combined (Mediakix, 2019). Rick Miller, a clinical and sports dietician, states, “many young people I see are completely obsessed with Instagram fitness stars” (Mowbray, 2017). The problem with this is influencers are not categorized by their expertise, but by their following and engagement analytics. “Anyone with more than 100,000 followers, however, regardless of their qualifications, is deemed an “influencer”, courted by brands eager to reach their followers” (Mowbray, 2017). The number of followers determines a fitness influencers ‘status’ and expertise on the platform, not credentials; and what attracts followers is quantifiable and trackable progress.
With the rise of influencers on Instagram, the best fitness standards and practices are not created by certified experts but who gets the most ‘likes.’ This connects to Siva Vaidhyanathan’s “The Attention Machine,” that on Facebook attention is the only currency that matters and people have started to behave as brands online (82). Attention is what matters for fitness influencers because without attention from followers and engagements they will not receive sponsorships and brand-deals; attention earns them real currency. When people see fitness influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers, they assume based on that quantifiable number, they must be the best. With the visual nature of Instagram, fitness influencers post results people can see and track in order to gain followers.
People are attracted to posts with data and numbers because it helps people apply the same fitness strategies in their life since they can follow it exactly. It’s the same rationale with before and after photos of weight loss, people are intrigued with the ‘before and after’ because you are able to see the changes in weight, proving the fitness plan is working.
Posts showing quantified results can range from gym videos of specific sets and reps, ‘before and after’ photos, number of steps, running distance and pace, and how many calories are in the snack they ate. The fitness influencer Kayla Itsines, who has 12.8 million followers, is one of the largest Instagram fitness influencers and is known for posting before and after photos of herself and people who follow her routines; she posted two of these posts this week alone (March 21st - 27th). Jen Selter, who has 12.5 million followers, posts videos of her food and body. She made a post showing off her body captioning, “Back at it with a healthy snack! While I love a good tuna melt, these tuna cucumber sandwiches are a great twist,” and then proceeds to show off her body demonstrating the results of eating low calorie snacks and tracking carbs.
These are the types of photos/ posts that promote the quantified self through promoting that if you did not drop from a size 10 to 6 in two months, get abs in three weeks, eat 1500 calories a day, or you weren’t able to do 30 push-ups or run a 5km etc., then you are failing. Your fitness journey needs to be something trackable and visual (through photos and posting the numbers) and that you can share with others; because that is what Instagram influencers (the ‘experts’) post. And Instagram influencers post these types of posts because it is how they earn ‘likes’, engagements and followers, which is how they quantify themselves as fitness influencers.
Fitness Instagrammer Queen City Sweat discussed how she forced herself to push past her limits for Instagram. She wrote a post on Instagram stating she had become addicted to working out, saying, “It becomes so easy to start comparing yourself to others on here, which led me to develop a mindset of ‘How skinny can I get?’ rather than ‘How healthy can I be?’” (Mowbray, 2017). Before this post, Queen City Sweat was dedicated to proving to her following her results and data to show/prove her fitness journey. This demonstrates how with Instagram fitness influencers, the fitness culture on Instagram is about quantifiable results, what can be tracked is the most important. Because it results in ‘likes’ and following. This culture only prioritizes what can be tracked; in Queen City Sweat’s case this only being how much you weigh, instead of what is healthy. Because influencers are deemed the experts on the app, then how they track their success and progress is then deemed the standard.
1. Mediakix. These Top 20 Fitness Influencers Have over 90+m Followers. 14 Mar. 2019, mediakix.com/blog/top-fitness-influencers-instagram-millions-followers/.
2. Mowbray, Nicole. 'It's Intoxicating – I Became Obsessed': Has Fitness Gone Too Far? 30 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/30/has-extreme-fitness-gone-too-far-instagram-gym-classes.