Perceptions of Working Out and the Motivation Behind It
Working out can mean different things to everyone
Health and fitness are always important and have been taught at most schools in Physical Education for many, many years. Health and fitness also fill the mind of teenagers. Getting older provides more societal expectations for ideal looks and may give backhanded motivation for people.
I’ve realized over time that a lot of people motivate themselves to workout for a variety of different reasons, and I wanted to see what my surrounding community commonly uses as motivation to exercise.
I set up a few questions that I wanted to ask my friends. These questions gave me insight into the things I was most interested in learning about. The questions were:
#1: What is your favorite way to workout (biking, swimming, running, walking, weight lifting, core workouts, etc.), and why?
#2: Do you believe you have a healthy diet?
#3: If you could name the first and most prominent reason for why you choose to workout, what would that reason be?
I sent the questions to multiple friends of mine. I was honestly surprised by the results, and I felt a little disconnected with my answers:
#1: My favorite way to workout is running, playing basketball, and doing at-home core workouts because they are accessible to me, and I feel like I get a lot out of them.
#2: I believe I have a reasonably healthy diet.
#3: The primary reason I choose to workout is to improve my body image. This is something I felt more people would relate to, but it seems that my beliefs were challenged with external opinions.
I gathered the results from my close friends and community. For the first question, the answers varied. I saw running, biking, weightlifting, swimming, playing soccer or basketball, walking, and YouTube core workouts. For the second question, 85.7% of people said they thought they had a healthy diet. And finally, for the third question, 50% of people said they worked out to stay in shape for themselves. The other 50% were divided into various parts — 28.6% said they wanted to stay in shape for their sports seasons, 14.3% said they wanted their body to look better, and 7.1% said they worked out for fun during times of boredom.
I had initially expected more people to say they wanted a better body image when working out. I was surprised when most people said they worked out for themselves. My failed prediction, however, allowed me to realize why I believed that way.
For a few years now, outside of sports, the primary way I worked out was through YouTube videos. I would do core, leg, and arm workouts as much as I could. But for the longest time, I didn’t realize that the way the videos are presented to their audiences may have affected my perception of why working out is important.
When I surround myself with workout videos on YouTube, a lot of the mindset around these videos is maintaining a good body image. Even though staying in shape often goes in hand with body image, the titles of YouTube videos that say the workout will “flatten your stomach” or “thin your legs” show that the main intent of many YouTube workouts is to attack your insecurities in your body to gain more views. Rather than titling videos “core workout to stay in shape,” they instead say “core workout to reduce your waist size.” This presentation of how to workout influences my mind (and, most likely, that of many others) to believe the primary reason for working out is to improve your body image.
I’m very pleased I did this survey. If I’m completely honest, I didn’t have a full plan of where I wanted to go with this article before I sent out the survey. However, seeing many people’s motivation for working out being focused more on self-improvement motivated me to do the same. Rather than trying to focus more on my body image, I want to focus on staying in shape both for my health and sports seasons. I hope with this, I will be more motivated to workout in a healthy way.
Now I want to say this article isn’t meant to bash YouTube workout videos because many of them are productive and keep you in shape. However, recognizing the difference between healthy working out & eating and from motivating yourself to make your body look better is incredibly important. Finding your motivation to workout for self-improvement will make drastic changes to your physical and mental health.
Working out can mean different things to everyone. Not every person may have all of the equipment to workout at full capacity, but even going on runs or bike rides every day can do wonders.
Thank you for reading, and I wish everyone the best on their health and fitness journey!
Rashmi
