Many folks who even casually attend to advertising and inspirational messages about fitness–“fitspo”–will notice that messages divide into the categories of push messages (disincentives to being less active) or pull messages (incentives to being more active).

This message shows a slim, well-muscled young woman running across a beach in revealing exercise clothing (sport bra and tight short shorts). While this may seem like practical exercise clothing, the text makes it apparent that revealing her body to the gaze of others is a major goal. The text says “It takes 4 weeks for you to see your body changing. It takes 8 weeks for friends and family. And it takes 12 weeks for the rest of the world. KEEP GOING.” The emphasis here is on external appearance and feedback from external sources. Imagine this same image with the text “Do you ever wonder how fast you can run?”  The identical clothing will then send a very different message.

Push messages often rely heavily on shaming for being less active and all too often focus on attractiveness of body size/shape, factors which are not actually relevant to health in the way that fitness, nutrition, and physical activity are, and which are conveyed in ways which can actually encourage people to damage their bodies in the quest for health: “You will never become your sexy self sitting on the couch” or “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”  These messages feature visuals of idealized slim, fit bodies with visibly defined muscles and without any visible indicators of disability.  They are almost always Caucasian bodies. They are sometimes posed in very sexualized ways that emphasize receptivity to the male gaze and/or sexual availability, lips parted and back arched.  Such images are photos not of exercise, but of the results of exercising.  They lure you in large part by making you ashamed of how you are now, thus their classification as push messages.

Upon viewing a message with the bold words “THERE IS NO ROOM FOR THE WEAK” dominating the image of a slim headless woman running through the countryside, one can practically here the shaming voice in one’s head “and you don’t want to be weak, do you?”

Pull messages are rarer.  These tend to involve body positivity and reminders about how good exercise and movement can feel for a variety of body types and ability levels. These are internal rewards that involve very little or no shame.  Buzzfeed recently ran a listicle (an article that is a list) gathering 13 such messages. I present it for your consideration as a non-shaming, healthier way to, well, promote health. Here are some examples for contrast with the push messages provided above. Note how they may still inspire and motivate, but use very different messages to draw people toward exercise for reasons that promote internal sources of motivation and welfare: “Moving around feels good”; “Aren’t you kind curious how long you can actually hold a plank for?” If you  view the listicle, you will notice that the bodies also show a broadly different variety of shapes and sizes and visible disability.
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In a similar vein, consider the British campaign “This Girl Can” which this Editor would consider another example of a Pull message rather than a Push message.  It seems to say “come on over here and sweat and jiggle and move your fleshy meatsack of a mostly-water self… doesn’t it look like fun?”