Dismantling Hustle Culture in Fitness
The failures of self discipline in fitness
What do we mean by hustle?
"Hustle" can be defined as working diligently and rapidly towards something according to the official definition.
But what is up with the obsession with "hustle"? In our hyper-individualistic society, the idea we still have to "work harder" in order to achieve has become ingrained.
This attitude definitely has spilled over into the fitness space. We often attribute fitness to personal responsibility.
On the surface this makes sense, if you simply work out consistently, rest well, and eat right you can become physically fit.
However, on further evaluation this focus on individual merits is flawed. Working out depends on time, availability, access, and knowledge.
A single mother of 3 will have less time to work out than a professional bodybuilder. Resting well will also depend on the same factors as mentioned earlier, but people have to work, often multiple jobs at a time... this will definitely impact their rest.
Do not get me started on the barriers to proper nutrition.
We can summarize the systems in place hindering health as social detriments to health.
Obviously, this comes into conflict with the personal responsibility shtick.
Our culture worships hustle at all costs and thus personal responsibility treats fitness as totally individual. Meanwhile, fitness is social, only with other people can we have gyms, stupid ass diets, accountability groups, and coaches.
We see fitness as an individual endeavor but who defines it as this? Human health is the sum of its parts and a big part of that is other people.
Social Detrimentents of Health
The U.S. Department of Health and Health Services defines social determinants of health (SDOH) as:
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.
There are 5 domains to SDOH, they’re as follows:
Economic Stability
Education Access and Quality
Healthcare Access and Quality
Neighborhood and Built Environment
Social and Community Context
Each domain comes with subdomains beneath them and evidence they’re indeed problems, especially in America.
We will cover one of the major domains and the research associated with it.
Economic Stability
Economic stability is pretty self-explanatory, it deals with the topics of poverty stemming from employment, food insecurity, and housing instability.
Its well-known unemployment is associated with worse health outcomes not only physically but from a psychological perspective as well. Not sure how “hustling” to work out and eat right can overcome unemployment and its detriments.
Another aspect of economic stability is food insecurity- this relates directly to nutrition. Food insecurity is defined as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
Millions of households in the United States alone are designated as food insecure as of 2020. Food insecurity is associated with racial disparities, unemployment, poverty, gender, and mental health. It is also associated with inadequate nutrition, chronic diseases, and suicidal ideation specifically.
Neighborhood conditions, lack of transportation, and racial demographics all impact a person’s risk of being food insecure.
Finally, let’s talk about housing instability. Housing instability encompasses a number of challenges, such as having trouble paying rent, overcrowding, moving frequently, or spending the bulk of household income on housing.
The cost burden of housing can be associated with a number of psychological and physical health detriments. High housing costs mixed in with low financial resources lead people to expose themselves to unsavory housing conditions such as overcrowding, vermin, mold, and inadequate heating or cooling systems.
The covid-19 pandemic only exaggerated these issues with housing with rent becoming more unaffordable for poorer families, lower housing assistance spending, and rising home costs.
Just from one domain of SDOH we can see how many potential barriers people face when on their health or fitness journies. We didn’t even cover childcare costs, healthcare access, or how the physical environment someone lives in is a barrier to health.
Takeaway
We need to get rid of this myth health is purely due to a lack of “hustle” or personal responsibility. Once we take a wider look at health in all its contexts, even social, we can see it isn’t as easy as “just eat less and move more”.
Millions of Americans are dealing with factors that inhibit their ability to live a healthy lifestyle. Simply hustling or working harder does not overcome the issues faced by millions in supposedly the wealthiest nation in the world.
We need to dismantle the idea of hustle culture in the fitness industry and take a broader view that incorporates the evidence of social detriments to health.
Jae’s Weight Management Journey
Outside of today’s topic I wanted to discuss my own journey with weight, weight loss, and my perceptions of both.
My journey to losing and gaining weight should be a story in itself, but we will save that for another day.
Fortunately, I have a fitness coach whom I work with and who is guiding me along with my journey.
We experimented with tracking and hunger cues, my hunger cues seemed skewed by emotional eating patterns. When I am highly stressed I tend to turn to food, maybe this has to do with my years of abuse and my own mental health problems.
I am still exploring that side of myself for now. But this week we focused on adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet, which seems to be working so far.
I’m adding two servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit to my overall diet. I am not consciously trying to change anything else but focus on that. So far I’ve lost one pound, while weight loss isn’t the exact focus it goes to show my dietary pattern needs work.
If you’re also struggling with weight management maybe try adding more nutritious foods to your already established eating pattern rather than depriving yourself of anything.