Virtual Fitness

Many clothing brands are scared to feature varieties of female builds other than sky-high, skinny women. This creates a problem of inadequate representation for the women purchasing the products, who come in all different shapes and sizes. For example, Victoria's Secret Sport presents only women with a slim and tall physique. This is just one of the many body types and athletic builds for women; the rest nowhere to be seen. See this recent Facebook ad, for instance.  Some criticized the photo in the comments claiming the model wasn’t even holding the weight with the proper form and that it was laughably light. Do you think Victoria’s Secret Sport and other companies need to step up their advertising of athletic wear?  It is definitely a safer route to stick to conventional and traditionally feminine beauty standards. Using tall and slender models has obviously worked for selling clothing retail in the past. But, shoudn’t sportswear showcase more sportiness? Victo...

What does fit look like? When I shop online for workout attire, I am often disappointed (but unsurprised) at the visual selection of the clothes. For many labels, such as Victoria’s Secret’s athletic line, Victoria Sport, there is a decent(ish) range of sizes, but only has pictures of women with the same body type. That is - tall and slim. You’ve seen Victoria’s Secret models before. You know the body type. These women are gorgeous and obviously look great in these clothes. However, this look is simply unachievable to many women, and it can be very discouraging only seeing this one body type when shopping for clothes that will have to fit on your body. Many shoppers just don’t see themselves represented online.  Victoria Sport Sports Bra Collection Every once in an while, though, there is an athletic brand that pops out of the crowd of only tall, only lean, only “perfect” bodies, and proudly showcases more representative and more real(istic) models to displ...

Are Fitness Models Role Models? For simplicity’s sake, I will focus only on female fitness models famous on Instagram for this post. The prevalence of fitness models or “fitspo” accounts online has recently skyrocketed. Several female fitness influencers have hundreds of thousands - some even millions - of followers tuning in to see what exercise they will display next. But are they role models? Are they influencing these masses of onlookers in a positive way? Let’s explore. Obviously, sex sells. And one could assume that the sexiness of these fitness posts is the foundation leading to their huge success. If you scroll through any popular fitness bloggers feed, you’ll find that many, if not all pictures and videos feature the model in scantily clad or skin-tight workout attire. The cameras are angled giving the viewer close ups of the model’s breasts and butt. This is no accident. If you search the hashtag #buttworkout, you’ll see it currently has over 100,000 posts fea...