The Role of Fitness Ads in Exercising Practices

The advertising industry has taken over the world. Steadily establishing control over human behavior, thoughts, and actions we have become the product and our attention or action is being sold to the highest bidder. The advertising world first creates demand for products and services and then earns heavily by supplying the same. Every few weeks new trends, technologies, and theories are thrown at people, advertised as indispensable to a healthy lifestyle they take over the market as temporarily irreplaceable. The fad sustains till the next best product is launched for consumption. 

Ads today define fitness in unrealistic tones. By featuring slim and attractive people subject to further digital filters, ads dictate impractical and unachievable features of what fitness and health entail. Bombarding the public with ideas like being size zero and having ‘the perfect body’, infinite demand for an unattainable goal is given form. With the superficial goal of promoting health the industry ironically ends up promoting unhealthy ideas and practices among consumers. 

There are two sides to its effects on people. On the one hand it can inspire a positive change in the public, motivating them to foster a more health-conscious and fitness driven attitude. It can acquaint people to the diverse ways of practicing fitness. On the other hand, the major negative side effect of fitness ads is a general weight and body shape dissatisfaction and insecurity.

Constant anxiety associated with one’s physique and physical appearance coupled with the huge extent of misinformation prevalent in the market the resultant effect is unfavorable. There is a decreased sense of confidence stemming from these goals as they are not only limited by the physical capacity of individual consumers but by also what is scientifically possible. 

Take the ad for HealthifyMe for example, Sara Ali khan stars in it advocating the company for weight loss, “sara ka sara lose kar diya maine”, she says. I find it extremely duplicitous to use the face of influencers to lure consumers into opting for certain services. A famous face with a famous weight loss journey becomes the face of a weight loss company that might not have had anything to do with the results she achieved. I have no problem with company or its goals, I rather feel that it's important, but the advertising is a serious concern as it seeks to deceive people into buying the product. 

I believe that fitness ads play a massive role in exercising practices more negative than positive. Today’s consumer is exposed to an influx of data and media the last thing we need is to be misdirected for profit specially when it comes to matters like health. Everyone deserves the chance to explore what fitness means to than rather than being generalized.