The Social Media Drain

How many times have you checked Facebook today? Tweeted? LinkedIn with another random person you'll never meet?

Social media dominates the modern world we live in, and has seemingly stopped us actually being sociable in the true meaning of the word.

Despite the fact that Facebook now has around a billion users worldwide (that's 1,000,000,000,000 which is a lot of zeros), how often do those people have meaningful conversations or interactions with their ACTUAL "friends"?

Around 95% of Facebook users log into their account EVERY day, with 60% of Twitter users doing the same. That's a lot of liking, poking and twatting...sorry, I mean tweeting!

So how can this affect your wellbeing?

Whilst research into the impact of using social media websites is in its infancy, there are concerns over the potential negatives. Lack of face to face contact with other humans, more time alone, more time tweeting about how much you had to drink last night...

And of course less time moving around and keeping fit!

Some reports suggest the development of a "social media depression" as more and more people interact online and compare themselves to the idealised profiles and avatars of those they follow.

But is social media all that bad? After all, it allows friends and family to keep in touch with those they may not see that often, share photos of their happy families and tell the world about what they've just had for dinner.

#tweetwhatyoueat right?

I'm not going to sit here and tell you to delete all of your social media apps, or to sever all links with your virtual "friends" but it is a thought provoking topic that I question on a regular basis personally. Having a Facebook friends "cull" is always pretty satisfying, wouldn't you agree?

Have a think though, and if you're spending more time retweeting or sharing photos of cute fluffy cats (whatever makes you happy eh?) than talking to your friends and family or playing with your kids, then perhaps it's time to re-evaluate things.

As health and fitness professionals, social media offers us a vast number of potential opportunities. Be it promoting your business, connecting with current or potential clients, or keeping in touch with like-minded individuals to share opinions on the latest industry trends. Or re-tweeting a video of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson having a "cheat meal".

But it could also have a negative impact by distracting you from what you really should be doing. As ever, the key is to find a balance. By all means use social media to your advantage, but don't let it interfere with your life.

After initially putting this article together I took action, something I'd been telling myself I would do for some time. What did I do? I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I know, can you imagine?!

The freedom it gave me was actually pretty amazing! Now, I could have deleted my account and never gone back on it again, but I do see the plus side of Facebook and use it to keep in touch with friends and family so I'm in no hurry to rid it from my life completely...yet.

I still have Facebook on my iPad but this now means I can only access it when I have wifi, meaning that I'm not connected 24 hours a day. And guess what? I'm not missing much and can easily catch up on the day's events!

So here it is...I implore you to find a way to reduce the time you spend on your social media feeds, and start having real conversations with those who really matter to you.

Ironically this blog post will appear on Facebook and Twitter, sorry about that!

Chris

Chris Foster is a health and fitness professional with 10 years' industry experience. He has worked as a Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, Club Manager, Regional Clinical Lead Health & Wellbeing Physiologist, Clinic Manager, Physiology Training and Recruitment Manager and Wellbeing Implementation Lead. Chris is passionate about helping people live healthier lives through proactive lifestyle choices, as well as driving the level of professionalism within the industry.

I wish I was a little bit taller...

I went back to my homeland briefly this weekend to do a little personal training work, catch up with a few friends and see my godson. On the Saturday I had a coffee with an old friend from my time as a PT at Fitness First in Solihull. I can't believe that it's been nine years since I've worked there, it seems like yesterday that I used to start my working day at 6:00am with a run with Nicolette. She used to meet me in the club car park as the gym didn't open til 6:30, we could then get about four miles in and be back in time for here to have a shower and get to her busy job as a lawyer. I'd then proceed to see around ten to fifteen clients across the day until 10pm when I'd go home and start writing session plans for the following day. I certainly learnt a lot about my trade in those years, and more importantly, a lot about people.

Anyway, I met with Jack who had been a member and good friend who I've kept in touch with but not seen for years. We talked about his family and of his trips back home to Kenya and India where he had family. He told me that he'd recently spent a few months in Dubai and of all the wealthy individuals out there hiring their PT's to keep themselves in shape.

He also told me of a craze in India where the wealthiest members of society were spending vast amounts of time, money and effort on looking more white. From make-up to skin bleaching, face powder to staying out of the sun, they wanted to be pale because lighter skin was fashionable and denoted wealth and power. This struck me as rather sad, firstly that skin colour should be connected with success in any way even today, but also because I found it saddening that people will spend so much of their time wanting to be something different.

Then I thought, isn't that why people hire personal trainers? To be something different? And the answer is yes of course, but whilst we have a job to do in terms of helping people to achieve the weight loss they desire, helping them to tone up and look good for the beach, giving them more energy to play sports with their children and grandchildren and keeping them healthy for the years to come, we also have an obligation I feel to help people to feel comfortable in their own skin. As a PT I am never more satisfied than when a client tells me that they feel better about themselves, and even though they've only lost a couple of pounds, or sometimes nothing at all, they feel more energised, less stressed and better able to cope with the challenges of life.

The problem is of course, the whole world these days is obsessed with selling the idea of the 'body beautiful'. Magazines, newspapers, television, adverts, billboards, the Internet, you cannot escape the endless images of gorgeous, lean individuals wearing tight fitting clothing, or hardly any clothing, selling you everything from cars to cereal bars. Celebrities often endorse products and you think, 'there's no way that guy eats that and looks like he does or does what he does', Chris Hoy and a certain range of breakfast cereals or Mo Farah and a vegetarian alternative to meat being good examples.

As an industry, those of us that work in health and fitness have a responsibility to people to help them achieve their goals and dreams, but also to recognise that it's OK to feel good about yourself and to accept that you may never have the physique of Angelina Jolie, and that's OK. But do we? I don't think we do, not even close. The images you see on gym walls are rarely of an older couple going for a walk are they? And they're not of a man pleased to fit back into his size 34 trousers, even though he had to jump around a bit and breathe in to do up the button. No, they're of Barbie and Ken smiling after their latest teeth whitening procedure, bright enough to blind you if the sun bounces off them at the wrong angle.

I myself have spent the last three years developing learning materials for a fitness training provider, and the stock images I have to choose from to put on the front covers of the manuals are often hilarious. There's more fake tan than TOWIE, more enhancements than a Pamela Anderson lookalike convention. Maybe I'm foolish, but I've often pushed to turn down the image of the man who's arms are  bigger than my body and looks like he's been Tango'd in favour of a normal, middle-aged woman doing step aerobics, or an older couple doing a power walk along the beach. It might not sell but surely the aim is to be realistic and to attract those to our way of life who so far have failed to join us?

We can all take some responsibility for making this happen, for making people feel like it's OK to be normal. We can start by removing all of the pictures of Personal Trainers advertising their services whilst posing with their tops off. Unless it's a bodybuilding gym, there's just no place for this. It serves only to make the majority of gym members feel self conscious and unworthy of their membership. We can also stop encouraging people to buy every supplement under the sun to achieve their dreams. The majority of our clients don't need protein shakes, BCAA's, green tea supplements or any type of 'fat burners', they need a healthy balanced diet and a good mix of resistance training, cardio and flexibility a few times each week.

This week I posted my weekly shop on my balance weight loss Facebook page. I did this not to show off, but to show people that in amongst my healthy food, I had in fact bought some treats including a pizza, and I was going to eat it and enjoy it. I did by the way, and I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty as I've trained hard this week and won't be having one every day. If I can help to make normal people a little bit healthier whilst still being normal, I'll be a happy man.

It is absolutely OK to want to look and feel different, everybody needs a goal to strive towards and many people in today's society need to be more active, eat more healthily and lose some weight. It's not however OK to have people feel like they are pressured into being something that they are not. A lecturer of mine at university used to say 'you can turn a Shire Horse into a faster Shire Horse, but you can't make it a Racehorse.' When I was younger I always wanted to be a little but taller than I am. I peaked quite early at around 5 feet 11 inches, and that extra inch or so always eluded me.These days I don't worry so much that I never made it to 6 feet, I just spike my hair up the front and use that to give the illusion that I'm taller. And when my hair disappears, which is highly likely given the genetic predisposition in my family tree, I'll either accept being 5 feet 11, or I'll buy a hat!

If you're a PT, I challenge you to go and inspire people to be a better version of themselves, not an imitation version of somebody that they're not.

Kind regards,

Paul