A fitness creator has declared that you don’t need a lot of money to have a good physique. How true is this?

Last week, I saw this post on Facebook by a fitness and motivational creator saying that, essentially, your income level does not define your physique.

According to them, money allegedly does not dictate your fitness level— your time and effort towards being active matter more. They say that walking and working out at home are things you can do for free, and cutting weight means eating less, meaning you theoretically buy less food and save more money.

Now, to the person who needs a fire lit under them to change their lives for the better, this sounds like the perfect pick-me-up. Who needs to spend on a gym membership to get fit when you can start walking and running? Why spend on healthier options when you can just eat less food? The message is simple, ergo the plan must be as simple as well.

The problem is while the words sound good because they cut straight to the point, they also sacrifice a lot of nuance. The idea behind it isn’t completely wrong, but it isn’t completely right, either

The problem is while the words sound good because they cut straight to the point—no beating around the bush in saying the simple act of starting a healthier lifestyle is free or at least cheaper—they also sacrifice a lot of nuance. The idea behind it isn’t completely wrong, but it isn’t completely right, either; there are a lot of circumstances that are ignored or even erased just because they think it should be that easy.

Attempts to highlight crucial nuances on their posts get shot down as examples of “being woke” or “playing the victim card,” and while we all wish it was super easy to start being fit and healthy, you don’t get to brute-force your own reality.

So let’s try to look closer at the concepts they’ve brought up in this message and see what the truth is.

Is being healthy = being thin?

The age-old question: What is good health, anyway?

For a lot of people, they could stand to eat better, and they can benefit from cutting a few inches from their waistline. Being overweight and/or obese happens to be a common problem when it comes to weight, but not all bodies are built the same way. What if you’re underweight and need to fill out to be considered healthy? What if your body is actively working against you as a hard gainer? And worse, what if your reduced calorie count leads to nutrient deficiencies? That’s also not healthy, just as much as being fat may be unhealthy for most people.

It probably no longer needs to be said that always correlating thinness with good health can be a dangerous, slippery slope.

Are all fitness goals the same?

What about a person’s specific fitness goal? It’s easy to say that one is trying to simply lose weight but not all weight-loss goals are built the same. What if you just want to cut body fat? What if you want to cut fat and build muscle?

Simply being more active and eating less can make you thin if all you wanted to be was skin and bones but that would swing you too far towards the opposite direction of good health.

But if you wanted to be as fit as most fitness influencers, you would have to hit your protein quota to have decent-looking muscles, and quality protein takes a substantial investment of money. A survey conducted by the DOST back in 2013 found that 7 in 10 Filipino households do not meet their daily minimum required protein, and that figure must be even worse now with prices going up and wages stagnating.

Anyone can walk 10,000 steps every day or do a hundred push-ups for free (if you even had the time outside of working and earning a living) but if they’re not eating what they really need to be eating (and not just eating less), those efforts will be in vain

It’s easy to get a decent resistance training workout without having to invest too much, but every truly fit person knows that health is made first and foremost in the kitchen. Anyone can walk 10,000 steps every day or do a hundred push-ups for free (if you even had the time outside of working and earning a living) but if they’re not eating what they really need to be eating (and not just eating less), those efforts will be in vain.

And if you’re aspiring to be an elite, high-performing athlete? You need to make the proper investments—scrimping on what’s necessary for your sport will hold you back. You can’t sweep these under the rug.

So what if manual laborers look fit?

Another example used to support the “low-cost” argument is the physique of manual laborers, such as construction workers or stevedores. People point to them as the epitome of not needing a gym membership or a fancy diet plan to look good, and if they can do it, so can you with even more resources. They argue that people with more money tend to be and eat more unhealthily, which isn’t totally wrong.

But romanticizing their hustle by idolizing their fitness is problematic, because they likely make minimum wage and have no choice but to do backbreaking work to survive—they’re not doing it to be fit or have what we consider a “healthy” lifestyle.

Given their situations, they’re likely not making enough to be able to afford actual nutritious food, especially if they have a lot of mouths to feed at home. Don’t think that they wouldn’t take a more comfortable, less physical job with a higher pay if they could; being on their feet all day isn’t some trendy workout plan.

Too often do I see and hear fitness creators and influencers who seem to only be able to think in all-or-nothing binaries—health, fitness, and the human body are especially tricky things to navigate, which is why people pay and invest in experts to help them out and get the most out of themselves

People who need to be healthy often tend to at least be lower middle-class, and they need to hear things they can relate to. Trite pieces of toxic positivity that generalize everyone and their situations is not what people need to hear, even if it seems to be what’s easiest to digest. Too often do I see and hear fitness creators and influencers who seem to only be able to think in all-or-nothing binaries—health, fitness, and the human body are especially tricky things to navigate, which is why people pay and invest in experts to help them out and get the most out of themselves.

I would love for fitness at all levels and physical circumstances to be completely free or at least cost less for everyone. But that’s just not the world we live in, and we can’t pretend that money isn’t a barrier to great health and, yes, especially great aesthetics. No amount of laconic motivational quotes is going to change the bitter truth of the world.