“Strong is the new skinny.”

Actually…I’m not a big fan of this phrase.

Not anymore, anyway. This might come as a surprise, coming from someone like me. I consider myself to be strong for sure. I’m resilient, strong-willed, and I like to lift heavy $hit for fun. I have a naturally muscular build, which means that even if people don’t know me very well, they often assume that I’m strong, simply based on my appearance. And while I regularly acknowledge that I have thin privilege , even when I was an my thinnest, I never really felt “skinny enough”. The introduction of the phrase “strong is the new skinny” was supposed to be my ticket to the cool kids club.

This was supposed to be my heyday. In a lot of circles, it’s now considered attractive to have a round booty. Women all over are posting gym selfies of their #gainz. Sculpted arms all are the rage, and visible abs have taken the place of visible ribs. Plus sized models are gaining popularity, and “body positive” is becoming a big buzzword in mainstream media. The concept sounded enticing for awhile. But the deeper I dive into learning more about the body positivity movement as a social justice issue, the more I start to see that replacing “skinny” with “strong” isn’t much better. It’s just replacing one beauty ideal for another. And beauty ideals SUCK. They don’t help anybody. Except maybe the diet and cosmetic industries. Even those who are genetically “gifted” to fit them feel extreme pressure to uphold them.

What “skinny” has been for me (and probably a for lot of us):

Skinny was, for me, like an elusive unicorn. It was the one thing I wanted more than anything. To be gracefully, naturally, effortlessly skinny. To wear the special “slim” jeans from the Limited Too in 6th grade (who else remembers this??). To me it symbolized beauty, popularity, acceptance. Except it didn’t hold all the promise that I hoped it would. Because I couldn’t really see it. It was like a shining mirage of an oasis in the middle of a desert, all its wonder disappearing the moment I got close.

For a lot of women like me, it was goal that we spent our lives relentlessly chasing.  Always trying to lose the last 10 lbs, and then fighting with all our willpower to not gain it back. It was the reason we’d spend all of our gym time on the cardio equipment and avoid lifting weights like the plague. It’s why we bought those weird 100 calorie pack Oreos that were nothing like the real thing, went to bed hungry all those nights, and chewed a pack of sugar free gum a day. It made us perpetually hangry, constantly cold, and feeling like failures.

Do we REALLY need to reinvent a reason to do that sort of thing all over again?

I was curious what others thought, so last week I posed the question in my Instagram stories:

How does the phrase “strong is the new skinny” make YOU feel?

The responses varied greatly. I got things from: “It doesn’t bother me.” to “Despise it.” And I KNOW that there are a lot of people out there who are all in with it. If you are one of them, I’m not judging you. I get it. On the surface, it seems like a sweet glimmer of justice for a lot of us. But I’m going to share why I think it can be problematic. Because the last thing we want is to end up with a whole new way to hate on ourselves for not measuring up to an ideal. Yes, in theory, this phrase has potential. Don’t starve yourself. Focus on being strong and fueling your body to perform well. I’m on board with those things.

AND we need to be aware of what the phrase actually implies, which is this:

Now it’s not enough to just be thin. Ideally, still be small. But ALSO be super lean and have really defined muscles. It’s ok to be a little bigger, but only if you can lift heavy weights, or are really good at Crossfit. It’s even ok to be fat. . .maybe. . .but only if you are healthy, have your curves in the right places, and post your gym selfies and on social media. It’s not cool to count calories. You can eat as much as you want, but you still have to eat “super clean” at least 80% of the time. It’s ok to gain weight if you’ve been working really hard on those #bootygainz, but not if you’ve had a really rough week and decided to cope by mindlessly eating peanut butter straight from the jar. 

I mean, I didn’t make these rules. I don’t agree with them. But it’s the impression that I get whenever I see or hear “strong is the new skinny” and the images that often accompany it. When I think about it this way, it makes me cringe.

How does it make YOU feel?

Here’s the thing. Strong is strong. Skinny is skinny. You can be strong AND skinny. You can also be (gasp!) strong AND fat. You can develop strength at a variety of body sizes if being strong is your goal. There are also people who are strong AF who have never lifted a weight in their life. Because mental and emotional strength are really amazing qualities to have too. You can also be something completely different altogether if strong is not your jam. Like intelligent, funny, or KIND.

I LOVE how getting physically stronger makes me feel.

That’s just me. I love how it translates into feeling strong in other areas in my life. Many of my clients feel the same. It’s one of my favorite things about working with people 1:1. And yet, I wish that people didn’t come to me feeling like they can’t possibly get strong or be fit unless they “look the part”. I wish they knew that strong looks different on everybody. I wish they knew that there are a TON of good reasons to work out that don’t require you to pursue weight loss OR muscle gain. That sometimes when we think we’re doing something “for ourselves” it’s actually strongly influenced by the current beauty standards, whether we realize it or not.

I wish we lived in a culture where we felt free to exist in all our genetically diverse glory.

I know we can’t create that immediately, but I like to think I’m planting some seeds for a mindset shift. I hope this post helped you open your eyes to some new ways to think critically about the phrase “strong is the new skinny”. If you liked it, spread the word by sharing this post with others who may need this message.

Wanna get better at push-ups? Whether you’re trying to get your first one without using your knees, training to beat the entire patriarchy in a push-up contest, or just create better memories around push-ups than 5th grade gym class gave you, this program will help get you there.