I decided to enter a bikini competition. With all these “fitspo” images and fitness motivation depicting bikini competitor bodies (that we all musthave) I decided to challenge myself to see what indeed it does take to have that body. I’m learning that this body is very much not about health and more about aesthetics.

In my previous post I had written about the  demise of health in the fitness industry but today I must stand corrected. You see the fitness industry, at least in the case of women, wasn’t built around principles of health and wellness. It was built around aesthetics. When Fitness Centers first opened to women in the 1960s and 1970s their focus was purely on weight loss and spot reduction. They often did not have proper exercise equipment but rather pseudoscience based technology such as vibrating belts to jiggle the fat away. They had no resistance…