#548: Disordered Eating and Body Image in the Fitness Industry – Michelle Carroll
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fitness pursuits can bring various benefits. However, within the modern fitness industry there is a complex interplay of body image ideals, societal pressures, and disordered eating behaviors.
Research continues to illuminate how certain practices and messaging within the industry—such as the overvaluation of leanness or the impact of social media personas—can fuel body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.
For fitness coaches and enthusiasts alike, this raises important questions:
- What defines success in fitness?
- How can individuals engage in training and nutrition without falling into harmful traps?
- And how can professionals align their practices with values that support long-term well-being for themselves and their clients?
In this episode, Michelle Carroll, a PhD researcher in clinical psychology, explores these questions in depth. Drawing on her academic work and personal experiences, she discusses the implications of fitness industry norms, the challenges of online coaching, and practical steps for fostering healthier relationships with food and body image.
Timestamps
- [01:15] Defining disordered eating and body image
- [03:47] Motivations behind this research
- [05:37] Impact of the fitness industry on body image
- [08:29] Challenges and misconceptions about body image
- [14:26] Physical capital and pressures on fitness professionals
- [18:20] Consequences of harmful fitness industry messaging
- [35:04] Positive changes and gaps for future research
- [40:16] Practical advice for professionals and individuals
Related Resources
- Go to episode page
- Join the Sigma email newsletter for free
- Subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium
- Enroll in the next cohort of our Applied Nutrition Literacy course
- Michelle's website
- Michelle on Instagram: @michellecarroll1
- Disordered Eating Informed – Course
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. My name is Danny Lennon and you are listening to |
| 0:05.1 | episode 548 of the podcast. Thank you for everyone who has sent in kind words about our last |
| 0:13.0 | episode, 547, of which many people seem to have enjoyed. So that is great to hear. If you haven't |
| 0:19.3 | listened to that, maybe worth putting that into your |
| 0:21.4 | two listen list. But for today, we're going to be getting to another discussion with a researcher |
| 0:27.2 | about a really interesting area of research and one that I have spent some time looking at in recent |
| 0:33.9 | months in particular with the help of today's guest Michelle Carroll. |
| 0:38.3 | So Michelle is currently a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Edinburgh, |
| 0:44.3 | where her research focuses on disordered eating and body image concerns, particularly amongst fitness professionals. |
| 0:51.3 | Michelle also has a master's degree in sport and exercise nutrition, and |
| 0:55.8 | previous to that, did an undergraduate degree in radiography before being a radiographer for |
| 1:00.7 | multiple years previous to her transition into the nutrition and now academic world related |
| 1:08.0 | to disordered eating, body image, and so on within the fitness industry. |
| 1:12.4 | And of course, that is what we're going to be focusing in on today. |
| 1:15.4 | Some of the really interesting concepts that this throws up about how we actually should |
| 1:19.8 | define disordered eating, how we should think about what body image means, how some of the |
| 1:25.8 | messaging within the fitness industry creates pressure on people |
| 1:29.9 | not only entering into the fitness community, but also on professionals who work in the field |
| 1:35.2 | themselves and the consequences of some of that. And then also, therefore, if we want to make some |
| 1:40.6 | positive changes, what are some maybe better ways to do that? And how can we |
| 1:45.0 | mitigate some of these potential harms that can come up if we are unaware of them? So I think |
| 1:50.7 | you're going to find a lot of this incredibly useful. If you're a Sigma Nutrition premium subscriber, |
... |
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