{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Build for Health with Srdjan Injac","title":"Did Social Media Make Fitness Harder?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1798,"description":"More free fitness instruction exists right now than at any point in history. You can watch a qualified coach teach a squat at 2 a.m. for nothing. And the share of American adults who strength train twice a week has barely moved. In 1997, about one in five met the guideline. By 2018, it was about 27%.\nSo where did all that content go? This episode follows the incentives. A creator has to post something new every day to stay in the feed. A body getting stronger needs roughly the same few things, week after week, for months. When those two clocks run side by side, the advice changes faster than anyone can follow it. One Australian study of 300 healthy-lifestyle videos found most of the information misleading, and the creators with no relevant qualifications got it right less than one time in twenty. A study of news on Twitter turned up something less comfortable. When researchers took the bots out, false stories still spread faster than true ones. People did that part.\nThen the gym floor: what happens when someone follows a downloaded program through shoulder pain because the app says four sets, and what researchers saw when women looked at fitspiration images and then got on a treadmill. There's also a lightning round through the trends in a real feed this week: Hyrox, creatine, 75 Hard, cold plunges, and anything ending in \"maxxing.\" Signal or noise?\nIt ends with a number short enough to fit on an index card.\nLinks & Notes\n\"Eat Like Me = Look Like Me\": A Content Analysis of Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition and Clean Eating Social Media Content(Porteous, Kemps, Powell & Prichard, Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 2026). The Australian study of 300 TikTok and Instagram videos: 68% of the information was misleading or deceptive.\nThe Spread of True and False News Online (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, Science, 2018). The MIT study: false news was 70% more likely to be retweeted, and the gap held with bots removed.\nThe Effect of Instagram #Fitspiration Images on Young...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/P6-Fwi0tU-MslFf88Jx6P5Vfzi1hBEH6zBCkjt_-K_Q/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS84NTVj/NjBmNDQ2M2U1NTZm/ZTllMDc1ODIwNTk1/OWYzYi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}