Warning: Honest/Rant-y post right here.
I’ve been kind of pissed off/frustrated/upset with our little blogging community the last few months. It’s impacted the way I read blogs – in that I’ve basically stopped, save for the occasional link on twitter or checking some of my blog besties sites. It’s also impacted the way that I blog – in that I’ve basically stopped blogging myself the last few months.
It’s been something I’ve discussed with many of my blog besties and found several people who feel the same way as I do. So I finally decided yesterday that it was time I said something about it.
This post isn’t written to incriminate anyone, to point fingers, to mention anyone’s blog in particular. It’s really just a generalization of what I’m seeing/reading happen and how it makes ME feel. If it doesn’t make you feel the way it makes me feel, I’m glad to hear it. But don’t think I’m hinting at anyone in particular or talking in code. I’m just putting my feelings out there in a hope that it inspires me to blog differently, and hopefully some of you too.
I’ve started feeling like certain bloggers/blogs are moving in the direction of anti-inspirational content that is making some people feel bullied into being healthy. How does this happen? I’ve noticed a lack of the blog world talking about balance lately. A lack of talking about REAL LIFE and how we all miss workouts, we all have splurge meals and we all need that balance between healthy living and indulgence/slothdom.
I originally typed out a long list of the stuff that I’m seeing that is driving me crazy, but it turned into me preaching and ranting. So I want to give you some broad examples of what I am seeing, and if you don’t understand why these things have been bothering me, email me and we will talk.
Briefly, I’ve seen an increase in content of the following (again generalizations) on twitter/instagram/facebook:
1. Posting a picture of you working out every single day. 90% of the time, you look the exact same.
2. Posting inspirational comments/emails someone left for you.
3. Making your own hashtags/challenges with hashtags and then making graphics for these things and posting them over and over day in and out. Because frankly, that makes you look like you are WAY too into yourself in my opinion. Have a challenge any day, but don’t make it seem like you are the only person that could be sponsoring that challenge because you are SO healthy.
4. Only showing the “healthy” things that you do, but never posting a splurge meal, a night on the couch, or showing that you have any sort of balance in your life when it comes to healthy living.
5. Having a “healthier than thou” attitude and scoffing at anyone who chooses to not have a healthy moment or indulges a little too much. Or doing so yourself, but never sharing that with anyone else and going off the radar when you go through a tough time or have a bad day.
6. Never showing your real life and how healthy living fits into that life.
I don’t even have to read blogs to feel bullied by these things. It’s all over our social media networks.
In my mind, there is a clear distinction between what motivates me/inspires me – and what bullies me/leaves me feeling guilty. We ALL compare ourselves to others, it’s human nature and it happens. When I see these bloggers moving towards this “healthier than thou” or “look how I’m SO HEALTHY ALL THE TIME” – it makes me feel down on myself.
None of the above 6 things are “real”. None of them are relatable to someone, like me, who has a really busy crazy life right now. And others have definitely expressed these same opinions to me, so I know that it’s not just me that feels this way.
How are these things inspirational? How are you inspiring others by only posting the perfect things you do and not showing people how you unwind? We aren’t showing the world how we have a healthy life IN BALANCE with everything else we all go through in life. When people post the things I listed above (and many others) – it just breeds this obsessive and compulsive obsession with being healthy.
I really think a lot of these things come along with having a bigger blog. I’ve seen several bloggers have their readership grow, and these habits started to increase. I feel like it’s anti-inspirational to all those newbies and people just starting out to not show them balance. To not show them that this a lifestyle and here’s how I fit these healthy habits into the rest of my life, in a world (and country for us Americans) that doesn’t value health first. This is especially true because when people first start to get healthy, they are already obsessed with it. Then following others for motivation that are OCD themselves (or broadcasting to the world that they are OCD about being healthy) – we are just making these people crazier by not showing balance.
Furthermore, for us seasoned veterans who do still struggle daily (because we ALL struggle with something daily), these bloggers are ousting us from the community. We feel belittled and frustrated and guilty that we aren’t doing the things others are showing that they are doing. And for me personally, I stop producing content on my blog, because my life can’t compare to others. I can’t workout 2 hours a day right now. I can’t do a 3 minute plank. I can’t develop new recipes every weekend. So I clearly feel like anything I have to say isn’t worthy compared to what others are doing.
I don’t think people realize that they are being bullies. I know a lot of people don’t do this on purpose. And that’s why I wanted to write this post to encourage you ALL to look at your content and look at the message you are sending out to others. Are you preaching balance? Are you preaching healthy but sane living? Are you acting “healthier than thou”? Are you acting like you are the most healthy person on this planet and everyone should follow in your footsteps?
I want to end this with one more request. Healthy living ebbs and flows, as my beautiful blogger friend Chase said a few months ago. At some point, we will all ebb when another is flowing. IF you are feeling bullied by someone, you should un-follow them – it’s as simple as that. So if someone un-follows you, don’t take it personally. Don’t confront them about it, don’t bully them into re-following you. Don’t think that they hate you. It’s not YOU, it’s them. They will re-follow you when they are ready.
This is why I haven’t been blogging. This is why I stopped posting my meals/groceries several weeks ago. I don’t want to be this person. I’m doing the best that I can right now to balance healthy living along with my internship – and some days I slam dunk, other days I fall on my face.
Writing this post has inspired me to go back to my favorite types of blogging – random shit that I think is cool/funny that I want to show y’all. Things that my FRIENDS want to read. If a post doesn’t have pictures, you’ll get over it. And if you won’t, don’t read my blog.
I just want to blog about my life again, and not try to compete with what everyone else is posting. SO I make that promise to all of you and I hope we can all move back to a place of balance, rather than competition in our community.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, what a powerful post. Well done! ‘Never showing your real life and how healthy living fits into that life’ really stood out to me. I think the problem is once HLB’s identify themselves as a ‘HLB’, ANYTHING non-healthy they post about gets completely blown out of proportion & they are then labelled as a hypocrite. I definitely agree there needs to be more of a balance, but I think bloggers are often too afraid of judgement (by readers.) For example, recently, I posted a photo of a grocery haul on my personal FB page, and a couple of the items I bought were baby carrots & pre-cut broccoli. A couple people got all fired up about it, and began ‘lecturing’ me on the environmental impact of my purchases. Because I’m passionate about eco-friendly/healthy-living, EVERYTHING I do/eat/buy is scrutinized now. It’s my own ‘fault’ but I know I’m more ‘careful’ about what I choose to display, because I don’t want to open that can of worms again.
I had this same fear when I started posting my groceries because I can’t afford to buy organic milk or all organic produce every week. But at the end of the day, healthy living from a conventional farm or produce in a bag is healthIER than what everyone else seems to be doing – so that’s the message we should all be preaching.
And girl, I buy bagged produce weekly now because I’m so short on time. Don’t let anyone else judge what you are eating and how healthy living fits into YOUR life.
You have an excellent point about judgement from readers, and I think that is something that should be looked at as well. I do think some readers tend to put bloggers on a pedestal expecting perfection and that isn’t fair either. I don’t think bloggers should feel pressured into posting certain content or restricting their content.
It’s been said before, and it’ll be said again, and there are people working to improve it, but I do think the healthy living blogging community (both bloggers and readers) does lack a certain sense of…self awareness when it comes to what they are putting out there either via blog posts or comments.
I dig this post! I like to read blogs that inspire me with healthy food, exercise and such, but if I can’t find the real person behind those posts, I usually lose interest or as you said, feel guilty or bullied into their version of healthy.
However, there are some people I follow that do seem to be the ultimate in healthy all the time, but their positive energy and high-vibe kinda attitude really does continually inspire me and I never feel like I’m being slapped in the face with how healthy they are. I guess those are the people that lead by example as opposed to sorta saying, “Look how healthy I am! Why aren’t you!?”. If that makes any sense…
Thanks for the comment
It definitely does make sense. I had several bloggers like that I used to follow and some I still do. I’ve just noticed with a few, their attitude has changed lately and that’s sort of where this post came from. It’s hard because I want to still follow them and I’m friends with a few now, but they make me feel guilty more than they make me feel good.
I hear ya girlfriend!! No one is 100% perfect eating and fitness…if they are they aren’t having any fun and probably have a problem. Love you!!!
Girl, I am totally with you. I have weeks where I’m really on track and other weeks where I eat cookies, french fries and don’t work out at all. I buy packaged baby carrots because I just don’t feel like taking the time to peel and chop!
There are plenty of people I follow that knock out 20 miles in a day and I’m still plugging away at Couch to 5k. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I’m proud of myself.
I worked out every day this weekend but I also had a couple of cookies and a few beers last night. I’m human and if someone doesn’t want to follow me because of that – so be it.
Oh and someone (I won’t name any names) has been posting a bunch of pictures of themselves and getting comments like, “You look great!” and “I wish I looked like that.” In my opinion they’re WAY too thin and I’m sad that people are wanting to look like that.
This is an awesome post Laura so eloquent and poignant.
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. And as I touched on in my comment above, I think the healthy living blog community as a whole (both bloggers and readers) has a hard time really taking a look at themselves and analyzing what it is their posting and the impact it might have on themselves, their readers and other bloggers. It’s a really gray area (blogger responsibility, reader responsibility,etc.), and I think it’s something that really should be address through posts like these and conversations.
Really though, it was the last two paragraphs really hit home for me. I haven’t been blogging much lately and there are lots of reasons (laziness, lack of time, pressure to post certain things, laziness, etc.) but what you said makes so much sense to me. I want to blog to share my life with my friends. I want to blog (and I want you to blog) so we can keep up with each other’s lives. You should know you’ve totally inspired me to get on it with blogging again!
Thanks for writing this Laura.
Unfollowing blogs that make me feel bad about my current place in healthy living was important to improving how I lived. My lifestyle changed with work and I hated the belittled feeling of not eating perfect meals and working out daily for several hours.
Now I’m enjoying reading blogs that make me laugh, inspire me and are written by friends so I can keep up. It keeps me sane with my busy schedule.
Great post! And I’ve unfollowed a lot of blogs over the last 6 months for this reason. Some are just boring, and some make me feel bad about myself. It’s not just the pressure to eat perfectly and exercise every day, but also to have so many cool friends, and awesome social plans all the time, and constantly travel. I need to read things I can relate to right now, and that’s not it.
PS: I finished my DI this summer, and totally get where you are coming from. It was not the most balanced time of my life, but I got through it, and you will too. Hang in there!
Great Post, Laura. I find it very hard to find balance both in my life and in my blog/twitter/instagram, and I worry that I might fall into this bucket of not accurately reflecting that. Even though I occasionaly post comfort foods, etc, I actually show very few of my indulgences and struggles.
For example Yesterday, I had a lovely healthful raw meal and totally tweeted that all over the place. Then later in the evening, at a party, I decimated a bowl of doritos and felt really crummy afterwards, but I didn’t tweet that at all, of course. If I ask myself “why not?” I can come up with SO many reasons: feeling ashamed, being afraid of a blog backlash like Jo mentions (or on a smaller scale, losing followers), wanting to encourage & promote health (a good intention, perhaps gone wrong), etc.
I think it takes real skill to show balance in an inspirational and motivational way. And even more skill to live it. I think a lot of healthy lifestyle bloggers don’t have balance in their lives either – never having a moment to relax due to a busy gym schedule isn’t healthy either. I don’t’ even know where all my time goes, but I certainly don’t’ feel balanced. Thank you for being such a great example for us all!
Well I certainly am not balanced all the time, nor reflect it myself! But after posting this, I’m hoping to do that a little more and just focus on putting myself out there!
Thank you for the comment. And I love me some doritos!
You are awesome, and I think you do a great job showing how you try to find balance, even though it isn’t easy!
Those Doritos were insane. Once I had one, I couldn’t stop. A total trigger food for me!
I think this is where the attitude/ vibe the blogger gives off really come in to play. No one is going to post every single thing they eat/ drink/ do. For myself I tend to only post things that are exceptional in my mind a really amazing salad or a super tasty drink or an epic cupcake…
I think it’s just as much about how you present things as it is what you’re presenting.
You are so right, Stina. How things are presented is definitely most important, but (for me at least) that’s the hard part! As a blogger, there is definitely so much room for me to learn & grow, and I accept the challenge
Hey Laura,
I have really reduced my blog reading this last month or so without really realising. I was just getting bored with seeing the same posts everyday. I’m more interested in the people than what they eat (if that makes sense).
I agree with the balance thing. I’m not great all the time with my eating or working out, but I won’t not post that I sat and watched 4/5 movies on the sofa one day (one of my favourite past times!) and enjoyed the snacks that went with it. We are all human!
Blog what you find interesting otherwise you won’t enjoy it and you won’t reach people who share your thoughts and interests. Those are the people I want to read blogs by
I get what you mean about a healthy lifestyle ebbing and flowing. Right now mine is ebbing. I haven’t gone for a run in weeks, but I have been trying to keep my eating under control most of the time, keeping up with my Pilates classes, and getting out for walks. It is what I can do right now with work, family life, planning a vacation, and recovering from a minor car accident taking priority.
I read your blog to know that there are people out there like me. People who struggle to find balance and have that balance point shift with changes in their life. And I am inspired most by people who can admit that they are not perfect, but keep getting back up when things start to slip. I look for blogs that make me smile and have a unique perspective on things. Yours fits the bill most when you are just talking about your life and the new things that you have learned about yourself.
Well written, Laura!
I think this post needs to be out there. From my perspective, healthy living is about balancing healthy choices with some indulgences or missed workouts. I can’t relate to someone who appears to make the right decisions 100% of the time. If I can’t relate to them, then I’m not inspired by them and that’s when I stop reading.
It is so much better, in my opinion, to share that you had a super fun, but not so clean-eating, weekend, but that you have a plan to get back on track for the week instead of posting the one salad you ate and your sweaty post-run photo. That’s not the whole picture and it’s misleading. I get that people totally have the right to pick and choose what they post on their own blog, but “healthier than thou” blogs are not the ones I want to follow.
Very well written, Laura. I agree 100% with every word. So powerful. I hope every healthy living blogger reads this and thinks about what they are putting out there for others to read.
Love it!
Well, I wrote a really long, I thought brilliant, reply, then it got lost. So……basically I tried to say…..I completely connected with your post today. I found you through FMM and I think we have a lot in common. My blog is about me and my battle with my weight for my entire life. I am a WW member and I have lost 40 pounds over the last three years. I know….slowest weight lost ever! But…..my goal is good health, not a recorded breaking weight loss. Anyhow, I hope you visit my blog, not because I want a ton of readers….I don’t even know how all that works, but because my blog is about humor, patience and simply trying to live a healthy life, and still drink beer.
YOU should do YOU. I love your posts about grocery shopping/meal planning and I love it when you don’t post about them and you admit to being overwhelmed… because that is real, and that is me.
Thanks for posting this, Laura. I guess I haven’t really noticed this, but then again I don’t read a lot of the “bigger” bloggers so maybe that’s why. I think with more readers comes a less authentic blogging style, in a lot of cases. I was reading a more known blog months ago but had to stop b/c it wasn’t personable for me.
But, I think you should post whatever content you want. It’s YOUR blog. I totally enjoy the grocery plans for the week, etc.!
Very well written, girl.
I am so far behind on reading blogs due to my own crazy, busy life, so I just read this one today and I LOVE this post!! As I’ve been working on building and developing my own blog, I’ve felt really intimidated by a lot of bloggers because they seem to do everything “right” all of the time, and I certainly don’t. Thank you for reminding us all the healthy living really is about the balance!
This is a great post. I often notice this about a lot of blogs. Half the time it’s from people who are “full time bloggers” and all I can think is, you aren’t inspiring me because you have a lot more free time to fit in workouts/grocery shop/create recipes… And while that’s great, I’d way rather see people who fit in this stuff with full time work, a family, a LIFE outside of being the perfect healthy living blogger.
Thanks for the excellently worded post.
{ 1 trackback }