Fitness experts seek to end drill-sergeant putdowns

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- My grandmother can do more push-ups than you. No one wants to see jiggly cellulite hanging out of a bikini. You need to make up for all those cookies you ate last night.

While those kinds of drill sergeant-style putdowns and body-shaming warnings have long been a part of many fitness classes across the country, some instructors and researchers are promoting a change of message aimed at empowering clients, relieving stress and fueling students with confidence.

"Body shaming and focusing on appearance and comparing yourself to other people, we absolutely know that's harmful for women," said Renee Engeln, a Northwestern University psychology professor who has been studying messaging in fitness classes. "The more you're exercising to look good or to lose weight, the less you tend to enjoy it, the less you tend to stick with it. Whereas women who exercise because of how it makes them feel -- healthier, stronger, less stressed -- they tend to get more out of exercise and they tend to stick with it longer."

She recently surveyed hundreds of women who worked out in various types of classes and asked them to list their least favorite motivating comments. Around half said they hated comments that focused on appearance. Topping the list of loathed comments were those urging women to get a bikini body, look like a celebrity or endure punishment to atone for yesterday's dessert.

"You still go into most group fitness classes and the lowest common denominator conversation is like 'bikini body ladies, July Fourth is around the corner, what did you eat last night?"' said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a New York fitness instructor and assistant professor of history at The New School who has been studying feminism and group fitness.

In this May 21, 2016 photo, Sadie Kurzban, left, leads the Cardio Arms class at 305 Fitness in New York. Kurzban, a hip-hop dance workout with a live DJ, says drill sergeant-style putdowns and body-shaming comments from instructors are ultimately counterproductive for clients, some of whom already have body insecurities. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Sadie Kurzban, owner of New York's 305 Fitness, a dance workout with a live DJ, says such messages from instructors are ultimately counterproductive for clients, some of whom already have body insecurities.

"When a fitness instructor shouts something to us at a class, it's very emotionally charged," Kurzban said. "As instructors, we have this deep power to either build people up, empower them, give them a message that's really about their choice, their bodies, their lives or about shaming or putting them down."

But it's a difficult shift for instructors to make, particularly because the lingo is so ingrained not just in the fitness world, but with the rise of social media where body photos are relentlessly dissected.

The instructors in the Northwestern study denied making these types of comments, "but the women we surveyed were like, 'no, we hear it a lot.' So there's a real disconnect there," Engeln said.

Elaine Lewinnek said she eventually stopped going to a barre studio near her home in Encinitas, California, because she was sick of all the talk about getting a bikini body. While the 42-year-old mother of two and professor at California State University says she exercises in part for vanity, she says it's mainly about taking a moment for her herself and being inspired by others, like "the 80-year-old doing a headstand in yoga class."

In this May 21, 2016 photo, Sadie Kurzban, left, leads the Cardio Arms class at 305 Fitness in New York. Kurzban, a hip-hop dance workout with a live DJ, says drill sergeant-style putdowns and body-shaming comments from instructors are ultimately counterproductive for clients, some of whom already have body insecurities. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

"I don't work out to try to look like a Barbie doll. I work out to feel strong and healthy," said Lewinnek.

New York trainer Kira Stokes says a full workout goes beyond the physical. Clients are also looking for emotional support.

"A lot of it is reading the people in the room and saying that woman's shoulders are rounded forward, she won't look at herself in the mirror. The last thing she needs to hear is for someone to say, 'What kind of posture is that, get your shoulders back' ... You're there to make people feel really good and that doesn't include tearing people down while you're trying to build them up," Stokes said.

Petrzela created Link Together, Lead Together to unite fitness instructors to better use their platforms to help women. The group has had three events in New York and Los Angeles in the past year, with more than 100 instructors attending.

The idea, she says, is to "raise our awareness about the words we are using in our studios and ... see ourselves as vanguards of a new conversation rather just amplifying the old one, which is pretty disempowering."