Exercise is great if done for the right reason, but the often-cited reason to be “skinny” is not good enough.

I am not saying that being skinny is a bad thing, but when exercising that should not be the goal. People get in shape to stay healthy and live long. Going to the gym daily to make sure that you maintain a healthy heart and stay in shape is great. Hitting the fitness center to make sure you can fit into that size zero is where the problem comes in.  

The mentality of working out to be skinny is something that needs to change in our society. First off, there is no set standard of what skinny is. People look to celebrities for what is considered thin, but every single body is made differently. Trying to look like someone else cannot work because of different bodies. In many of the publications that celebrities appear in, there are massive amounts of Photoshop and airbrushing done to make them “perfect.”  In today’s age, the body on the front of the magazine is altered to an unrealistic expectation.

Health concerns are another reason to not focus on being skinny. A healthy weight is determined by a variety of factors. Height and age has a lot to do with this. Taller people will often weigh more because the weight is spread out. If you only focus on the number on the scale, then you are misleading yourself. A 5-foot-10-inch and a 5-foot-4-inch person are going to naturally weigh different. When both say they weigh 130 pounds, then that can be concerning.  The 5-foot-10-inch person should be around 130 to 170 pounds to maintain a healthy weight, according to the World Health Organization. 

Fixing this idea of exercising to be skinny is hard. A lot has to do with the way people look at workouts. Go on Pinterest or Google and type in “workouts.” About half of them will say something along the lines of “work out to look skinnier” or “work out to have a flat stomach.” It is not often that a segment is labeled “how to stay heart-healthy” or “how to lower cholesterol.”  It is more likely to focus on physical appearance or weight loss such as “how to lose 10 pounds in 10 days. Changing the way we look at exercising can have a major affect.  It needs to be thought of as a health reason instead of a physical reason. Numbers focused on weight should be left out.

Another item that needs to change to help this issue is the idea of “skinny.” The famous saying by Kate Moss, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” is a great example of how society looks at this concept today. The focus to be skinny is a phenomenon that needs to stop. What people do not realize is that if you get too thin there are just as great health risks. Too low blood pressure is one problem that can occur. It can result in light headedness and fainting. When you do not eat as much and exercise a lot to stay thin, your immune system will not work as well. If people focused on the health risk of not just being overweight but underweight as well, this could help disband the idea that skinny means healthy.

More people need to stop going to the gym to be skinny. Going to work out is a great way to help stay healthy, but not if the point is to be thin. What one person might consider thin is not always a healthy weight. Find out what is considered a healthy weight and make sure to eat healthy along with exercising.