{"id":757712,"date":"2026-07-12T01:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T01:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757712\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T01:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T01:32:12","slug":"body-image-and-fitness-trends-why-embracing-strength-and-rejecting-thinness-culture-is-a-rebellious-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757712\/","title":{"rendered":"Body image and fitness trends: Why embracing strength and rejecting thinness culture is a rebellious act"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For the past few months, I have felt the need to rebel by doing three obscenely controversial things: eating, exercising and wearing less make-up.<\/p>\n

What am I rebelling against? I\u2019m not exactly sure.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe writer training at SRG Thai Boxing Gym in Sydney.Audrey Richardson<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, I was mindlessly scrolling on TikTok, rocking back and forth in a hammock on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand, where I\u2019d gone for a week-long Muay Thai camp. It was a humid 37-degree day and I was cooling off between training sessions, keeping half an eye on two hornets buzzing around in circles at the corner of my bamboo hut. A video of Hilary Duff\u2019s latest campaign with the fitness app Ladder, called \u201cStronger, Not Smaller\u201d, appeared on my feed.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrength isn\u2019t optional for me,\u201d Duff says at the start of her campaign video. \u201cBeing able to carry my kids and give my best on stage, all while feeling confident in my body, is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, I watched a red-carpet interview she did with a Time magazine reporter, who asked her about the meaning behind the campaign. She said she felt pressure to conform to the thinness culture of the early 2000s despite spending years as a child doing gymnastics and building natural strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not natural for my body, and for most of our bodies,\u201d she said on the red carpet. \u201cI used to be embarrassed [by] my strength, and I just don\u2019t need to be any more. I \u2026 grew up during that time where all of us were trying to, like, disappear and be waifs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The word \u201cdisappear\u201d made that strange, rebellious feeling rear its stubborn, angry head. This time, between the amorous buzz of the hornet lovers, the shade of banana and papaya trees and hordes of sticky geckos crawling above me on the bamboo ceiling, I knew why.<\/p>\n

I was born with a strong pack of muscles. Jacked, if you will. My calves were always bigger, more defined than boys\u2019. Most of the time, so, too, were my arms and thighs.<\/p>\n

In high school, when I was 17, I joined a gym and started training three or four times a week. Having only done a few years of dance growing up, I was shocked to see bubbles of muscle protruding from my back when I flexed in the mirror after lifting weights for a few weeks. My thighs began to expand, forming dense loaves of muscle that hovered above each knee.<\/p>\n

A persistent voice inhabited my teenage mind around this time and began relentlessly comparing me to what it deemed better: thinner girls, and the perfectly filtered faces I saw on social media. It convinced me to quit weight training and pile concealer beneath my naturally dark undereyes. I have since named the voice Dysmorph.<\/p>\n

When the pandemic shuttered exercise facilities, it felt like the perfect excuse for me to embody the traits that Dysmorph said would make me a Peak Woman: someone who tracked kilojoules, restrained exercise to soft cardio and spent most of my Kmart pay cheque on \u201cmiracle\u201d skincare lotions.<\/p>\n

\"InstructorInstructor Sarkis Doueihi holding pads for Olaya during training.Audrey Richardson<\/p>\n

I suddenly weighed less than one of the iron plates I used to shoot in the air while doing hip thrusts. Meanwhile, YouTube make-up tutorials taught me how to manipulate my features if I couldn\u2019t afford filler. I Never Felt Happier. I was 19 years old.<\/p>\n

Dysmorph\u2019s role as a main character in my brain ended in my early 20s. I gained back the weight (thanks to hormones), decided against cosmetic procedures (thanks to feminist literature and being broke) and started weight training again (for the dopamine, really). This time, however, I welcomed the return of my Bubbly Back and Loafy Legs. After all, I was born Jacked.<\/p>\n

As celebrities become thinner and weight-loss drugs and casual cosmetic procedures filter into mainstream culture, women are being subliminally told that if their cheekbones don\u2019t protrude horizontally from their face and their spines do not accessorise a backless dress, they\u2019re not desirable or feminine.<\/p>\n

You are watching it happen to one of the world\u2019s most successful athletes, tennis star Serena Williams, who is making a comeback on court at 44 while promoting a weight-loss drug from healthcare firm Ro. \u201cSerena\u2019s on Ro,\u201d the promotion reads, adding that it helped her lose 34 pounds (about 15 kilograms). \u201cAre you next?\u201d the promotion then asks the reader.<\/p>\n

I feel as though women are starting to disappear all around me, along with their cellulite, muscles, fine lines, dark undereyes and rolls of fat. I never thought looking like a Normal Woman would be political. Being ugly, bumpy, ripped or saggy is beginning to feel like a rebellious act in itself.<\/p>\n

When I went down the TikTok rabbit hole on Duff\u2019s campaign, I was working out under a strict regimen at the Muay Thai gym. It was two hours of training in the morning and two hours again in the afternoon, starting with 15 minutes of skipping, followed by stretching, clinching, sparring, technique training and rounds of hitting trainers\u2019 pads or a punching bag. It was hundreds of push-ups, knees, elbows, punches and kicks a day. Sometimes I did additional personal training sessions at noon when temperatures edged 40 degrees.<\/p>\n

\"ThinnessThinness culture can catch these elbows.Audrey Richardson<\/p>\n

But between the gentle swings of the fading, royal-blue cotton hammock on that sticky afternoon, surrounded by amorous but deadly insects and my gravity-defying reptilian spectators, I wondered what I would say to the 17-year-old me who\u2019d hated her Bubbles and Loaves and bowed to Dysmorph\u2019s commands and judgments.<\/p>\n

I would ask her to cherish her eyebags and her strength. I would tell her to fuel her hunger. Because the older me knows there is something better than looking perfect, even if that were achievable. It is the loud thwacks you produce when you kick, knee or elbow those pads, you Jacked Beast.<\/p>\n

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\"KaylaKayla Olaya<\/a> is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,97],"class_list":["post-757712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}