Is Being Fit an Ethical Responsibility?

By Mallory McPherson-Wehan

My friend, a fellow trainer and group fitness instructor, sent me this post a few days ago. It was created by an Instagram influencer that calls himself “Diesel Dad” and has almost 100K followers. I can’t get it out of my head. 

Fitness: An Ethical Responsibility

I hate the term “motivation.” Motivation is overrated. The entire fitness industry is built on short selling aesthetics. Looking good naked is awesome but the goal you have in mind is rarely attainable without a lifestyle you cannot sustain. Performance plays to the long game until your joints despise you, consistency wains, and you’re telling stories of yesteryears bench press. In the last year, over 42% of Americans gained an average of 29 pounds. Millennials, age 25-40, gained an average of 41 pounds during lockdowns. (APA 3/11/21). As an industry, it is time to move past motivation, aesthetics, and performance. I believe there is an ethical responsibility to being strong, lean, and athletic.

Fitness is a conversation of ethics. A conversation about being an asset, not a liability. Increasing strength and decreasing fragility. Carrying a low body fat percentage to reduce the risk of disease. Athleticism to be an active participant in life. These are learned behaviors modeled by leaders in our own lives. Before teachers, coaches, and mentors, there were parents that laid a foundation for right and wrong. Fitness is an ethical responsibility in the same manner that we have agreed lying, cheating, and stealing are detrimental to a functioning society. This is accepting that over time, motivation, aesthetics, and performance will vary. However, the ethical responsibility is a constant. Accepting this requires developing a physical education on movement, strength, and conditioning. An education on metabolic health, macronutrients, and muscle. An education on running, jumping, playing, and physical freedom. Accepting fitness as an ethical responsibility requires leadership. It requires you to get off the sidelines, step into the arena, and lead by example.

I get really uncomfortable and angry when people, especially extremely privileged people, bring ethics and moral value into conversations around health and fitness. This man’s post reeks of “healthism” which is the concept that being “healthy” is a moral imperative. I found this great article on healthism that I want to quote:

The term healthism was originally defined as a “preoccupation with personal health as a primary — often the primary — focus for the definition and achievement of well-being.” People should pursue health because it's the right thing to do (as opposed to a personal choice or a way to be effective at other things in life).

The article goes on to explain that healthism overlooks the social determinants of health (access to resources, education, public safety, social support, transportation, etc.) in favor of personal responsibility and individual behaviors. According to healthism, being healthy is patriotic and just. This perspective obviously ignores racism, sexism, inequities in healthcare, but also in technology access, food access, etc. If anything, healthism just creates a culture of guilt and shame.

I want to pause here to dig a little deeper into “Diesel Dad’s” wording and language. He says “I believe there is an ethical responsibility to be strong, lean, and athletic.” First of all, strong, lean, AND athletic is a tall order. Not to mention, what does it mean to be strong? Lean? Athletic? Lizzo, an award-winning singer, rapper, songwriter, and flutist weight-lifts daily and is an agile and majestic dancer yet I have a feeling “Diesel Dad” would still categorize her as “unhealthy.” It’s always problematic to say some arbitrary, undefined term is the goal because guess what? We’ll constantly be striving to reach an unreachable ideal. 

Diesel Dad writes “This is accepting that over time, motivation, aesthetics, and performance will vary. However, the ethical responsibility is a constant.” Yes -- our motivation does change over time, he’s absolutely right about that. But the leap to saying “motivation changes therefore we need to be fit because it’s ethical” doesn’t sit well with me. I feel that because motivation changes we should focus on finding joy and pleasure in our movement instead of forcing ourselves to do it. Depending on who you are, ethics could be an intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, but I would say for most people, ethics is extrinsic. We are being told what is “ethical” in this situation instead of finding it on our own. 

Though I fundamentally disagree with the basic assumptions of the post, I do agree that the fitness industry needs to move away from aesthetic goals and towards promoting sustainable and JOYFUL movement (I’m adding joyful, Diesel Dad did not have that descriptor). I do agree that we need to do a better job of educating people on finding safe, functional, and FUN movement. But I don’t think the reasoning behind that promotion and education is ethics. It’s because movement is magic; it’s an energy booster and helps our body function at its most optimal. We are meant to move; our bodies want to! Why do we need to bring in ethics? 

I think it’s important to add here that access to fitness is not equal for all. Education is great, but access is crucial. There are towns without sidewalks, neighborhoods with low air quality, entire swaths of the country lacking a grocery store, and places where gym memberships are exorbitantly priced. There are also many fitness spaces that don’t feel safe or inclusive for women, people of color, people in bigger bodies, and non-binary folks. Until we start dealing with the discrimination, poor access, and lack of representation in fitness, how can we add an ethical burden to exercise? 

I read Diesel Dad’s post to my boss at work and he made the invaluable point that this guy just wants to make money. This post is meant to target insecurities, trigger guilt and feelings of inadequacy. He wants you to NEED his help. Not to mention, his perspective targets people who are more vulnerable to diet culture, like those with eating disorders, bigger bodies, or those with health issues. This shit makes me so mad. You don’t need Diesel Dad telling you how to live your life.

At the root of his post is fatphobia, ignorance, and some very deeply ingrained elitist healthism. Fitness is not about ethics. It never has been and it never will be. When we tell people that it is THEIR responsibility to be fit, we get to slide past all the barriers and inequities in the system. How convenient. Remember that anyone making this argument is looking for money and does not have your best interests at heart. Live your own life. F*ck off Diesel Dad.