We have all come across people who consider fitness or anything connected to fitness as the most important. They often have social media handles that are filled to the brim where they are either working out at the gym or trekking or doing Zumba and more. What these people are doing is actually called Fitstagramming, in other words, to put up posts of oneself doing anything that is related to fitness like hiking, working out etc. We find out why they do this. For fashion designer Sarita Mandoth, fitstagramming gives her a feel good factor about herself. Adding to this she says, "I do a lot of things when it comes to fitness like gym, yoga, spinning etc.
I think one of the most important reasons that I fitstagram is to motivate myself. The other is to lead a healthy lifestyle. The pictures that I have uploaded have helped my friends to consider fitness with more dedication. I believe when you take a good look at a nice workout picture of yourself after some time, you feel good about yourself and that motivates you to keep going.”
Sarita Mandoth posts a ‘post workout’ picture.
For Salman Siddique, a nutrition consultant, fitness is a never ending journey and by posting pictures he keeps track of this journey. He adds, “Posting such pictures on my Instagram handle is one way I get to inspire people to turn to a new leaf and get healthy. It also helps me track my growth. If you notice, most fitness freaks have a set of goals that he/she needs to achieve. Through this, I’m able to track the progress I made so far. Fitness never ends, I have seen people stop once they achieve their goals, but that is not right. Fitness needs to be something that is enjoyed and it should grow into you.” For another marathon runner and software engineer, his Instagram handle is full of pictures of the marathon medals he has won. Jaganath Maharana says, “My Instagram account is filled with pictures of my marathon medals. Each post that I put helps motivate me to do better. It has been a gradual growth for me. Starting 5 kms, I went to 10 and then a half marathon which is the highest I have done. These posts have gotten me a lot of appreciation from friends and I think it creates awareness in some way. The pictures have always motivated me to run tougher marathons in the future. A few of my posts are also from the trek that I took to Kodachadri.”
Fitstagramming has both a positive and a negative side. Lohith Nanjappa a fitness expert shares his views by saying, “Instagram, of late from whatever we have seen, has become more of a conscious platform. It become a platform to post the best about themselves and hide the worst. The good thing is that unlike Facebook and twitter, where we just post stuff, Instagram has the option of reaching out to the global audience depending on the hash tags you use. But, the negatives are, we have discovered that there are a lot of fake profiles which ahs gotten a lot of people to believe that a good body is everything and not health. Nobody wants to prioritise how to lead a healthy life and rather how to get a good body. This is where they digress from the goal.”
