With the increase in electronic devices and screen time over the past couple of decades, people have begun to spend more time indoors. That, in turn, has led to the reduction of overall health and fitness in society. Twenty years ago, things that required some amount of physical activity can now be done with just a few clicks of a button. For example, shopping.
Another important aspect of technology that increases people’s screen time and reduces their physical activity is social media. Most people have at least one social media page they regularly focus on and contribute to.
However, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Social media offers images and videos from fitness enthusiasts and influencers (sometimes even family) that likely inspire people to improve their health and fitness. Social media is also a great source of information about health and fitness; ensure that the information collected and shared is accurate.
Importance Of Health And Fitness In Your Community
Everyone knows that being healthy is important in living a longer and more independent life. But people tend to get complacent about maintaining their health, especially amid the rat race that life has become for most. The pandemic at least slowed people down and made them realize the importance of their health.
However, maintaining health within a community in pandemic conditions and outside them can be hard. This is because there is a distinct lack of physical exercise in the lifestyle of most people.
People with office jobs often live sedentary and high-stress lifestyles that lead to chronic illnesses later in life. Regular physical exercise can prevent or help manage several diseases, including arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, dementia, back pain, etc. Moreover, regular physical activity also improves balance, memory, and sleep and reduces stress.
Besides physical exercise, nutrition and mental health are the other two aspects to consider while trying to improve/maintain good health. A balanced diet is extremely useful in maintaining both physical and mental health. Additionally, meditating for a few minutes daily can work wonders in improving mental health.
Ways To Improve Health And Fitness In Your Community Through Social Media
Social media is a great information source and motivator for health and fitness, and there are many ways it can be used to improve health and fitness in a community. Here are the top six:
1. Use It As A Source Of Motivation
Individuals make up the community, and when individuals are motivated to improve their health and fitness, so is the community. However, people often need a lot of motivation to go to the gym or follow a workout regimen at home, especially if the workout is done after work or early in the morning.
That’s where scrolling through social media feed and seeing friends, family, or even favorite influencers showing off their fitness comes in. When people see others they know or care about getting fit and improving themselves, they’ll be encouraged to do it too.
2. Use It To Build A Sense Of Community
Social media can be used to connect with other people in the community and even outside of it. Sharing one’s fitness journey is a great way to motivate others in the community to take their health seriously and ensure that people know they are not alone in trying to get fit.
It may be a good idea to encourage others to share their journey’s through social media. Beyond that, getting people to share their fitness journey helps keep them accountable and encourages more community members to begin their fitness journeys.
3. Use It To Find Easy-To-Follow Workouts
Easy-to-follow workouts are a great means to encourage health and fitness in a community because more people will be able to do them easily. What’s more, it just so happens that fitness trainers and professionals often use an Instagram story maker to share such easy-to-follow workout videos, usually focusing on one particular area of the body, on their Instagram and other social media accounts.
Thus, there’s something for everyone, whether the goal is to tighten abs, build muscle, or improve stamina. It is possible to customize the trainer’s workouts to suit individual needs by combining exercises for more than one goal.
Some accounts also help decide the right food and exercise combinations to suit a person’s fitness goals. What’s more, with all this advice available for free, it’s quite easy to encourage people to work out solo without hiring a personal trainer.
4. Use It To Find And Share Healthy Food Ideas And Recipes
Social media is a great source of information for all kinds of things, including healthy food ideas and recipes. Many accounts on the various social media platforms focus entirely on offering healthy recipes.
Finding and sharing these healthy food ideas and recipes is a great way to encourage health and fitness in the community. The best part is that there is something for everyone, no matter their tastes in cuisine.
5. Use It For Diet Advice
Social media platforms like YouTube and Pinterest (and even Instagram) often have great ideas and advice for diets. It can, therefore, be used to teach people all about the many different kinds of diets before they choose the one they’d like to follow.
Be careful to verify the validity of such advice before teaching others and following through with it. It’s always better to go with apps that host professionals in nutrition or take advice from social media accounts that belong to certified nutritionists when trying to find diet advice.
6. Use It To Launch A Health Campaign
A health campaign doesn’t necessarily have to be a big event. It could just be a race, or just a campaign to have people do several steps, or it could be a class that helps educate people on an aspect of health and fitness.
All it has to do is encourage people of all ages within the community to join. Conducting different activities throughout the year for differing age groups is a great way to keep people interested in the long-term.
Conclusion
To conclude, physical exercise is an important part of health and fitness, nutrition, and mental health. Therefore, while trying to improve health and fitness in your community, all three of these aspects should be thoroughly focused on.
Additionally, social media can be a great motivator to get people to begin and stay on their fitness journeys. It can also be used as a great source for a variety of information related to health and fitness, amongst others.
However, remember not to overuse it, as that can be counterproductive, especially when people begin to compare themselves to images of famous people that are most likely photoshopped. It is important to remain realistic with fitness goals and to stop using social media when it begins to affect mental health negatively.
