Bodybuilding has Infiltrated the Male Fitness World, and Social Media is the Culprit 

By: Bianca Bania

They walk across the stage. The room is packed with spectators, all watching in awe; excitement fills the room, and you can feel the tension as everyone anticipates human greatness in the physical form. You stare, jaw dropped, as the powerful men strike their poses. Ridges carved underneath their skin, firm muscles telling a story of years of discipline and relentless effort. Their bodies are layered with golden tanning lotion, each pose highlighting the definition and tone that they spent years building. The stage lights hit them perfectly, making every muscle stand out individually. Your eyes scan over the figures on stage; they look like the statues you saw while vacationing in Italy or Greece. But they aren’t made of marble. 

These figures are bodybuilders, people who go to the extreme to build muscle and maintain it while being as physically lean as possible. Both a sport and an art form, this activity drives people to do the unthinkable. With intense high-to-low calorie dieting, on top of vigorous weight lifting and cardio training, bodybuilding takes people to their limit, yet pushes their boundaries for more. 

Bodybuilding is usually seen as something extreme, but a lot of researchers have started connecting it to better mental health. In 2023, a study from Ulster University in Ireland looked at 601 adults to see if strength training actually helped with things like anxiety and depression. What they found was pretty surprising: on days when people did muscle training, they showed lower levels of anxiety and depression. Basically, the more often and intensely someone worked out with weights, the better their mental health seemed to be. (Shannon et al.). And it’s not just adults. In 2021, researchers at the Shanghai University of Sport ran a similar study but focused on teenagers. They found that muscle-strength exercises also helped lower depression in adolescents, calling it a “protective factor” for mental health. (Yu et al.). Both of these studies show that strength training, simply lifting weights, can make a big difference in how people feel, no matter their age.

Even though researchers claim that strength training helps with anxiety and depression, bodybuilding isn’t always good for your mental health, especially when it becomes obsessive. In fact, it can create more harm than good. Bodybuilding is an all-consuming activity; it’s a lifestyle that causes people to constantly think about what they eat, how they look, and even use dangerous substances like anabolic steroids. Overall, bodybuilding isn’t just about lifting weights; it’s about chasing a specific look. This pressure can be overwhelming. People start comparing themselves to unrealistic standards, tracking every calorie, and basing their self-worth on how they look in the mirror. Unfortunately, this doesn’t alarm many people. Because bodybuilding is often associated with health and adults who can make their own decisions, many will assume that they know what they are getting into. It can’t be that bad, right?

But this thought cannot be further from the truth. In the modern day, Gen Z is becoming increasingly obsessed with bodybuilding as our social media feeds are engulfed with fitness influencers that encourage ideologies like looksmaxing, a dangerous practice that obsesses over physical appearance and does anything to achieve the perfect look. So Gen Z is increasingly participating in the gym for aesthetic reasons. For example, in 2023, the Health Management Club found that “47% of Gen Z listed ‘improving their appearance’ as a key reason to work out.” As bodybuilding starts to shift onto social media and young people become more involved, it's hurting more and more people. It's crucial to address its health risks, including steroid use, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders which have lasting effects on one’s mental well-being.

One of the most significant health risks to bodybuilders is the excessive use of anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids, or performance-enhancing drugs, have been used by bodybuilders for decades as they help improve their overall physique and strength while training. Although this practice of using anabolic steroids to build muscle mass was once strictly used for athletes and bodybuilders, it has quickly become a common drug in the modern gym. But why are non-competitive athletes using this drug, and how does it relate to mental health issues?

Currently, our world is overwhelmed with reminders that we need to look a certain way, which is especially prevalent with social media. An example of this is cosmetic surgery, with aesthetic medicine being extremely popularized within the last decade. These are easy and fast ways to get our ideal bodies and features. (Barone et. al). So it’s no wonder that people who are not competitive athletes or bodybuilders yearn for an easy way to get bigger muscles fast, and anabolic steroids are seen as the easy way to achieve that goal. Overall, young people are drawn to performance-enhancing drugs because of their perceived effect on creating their ideal body type. This is shown in numbers, too. According to the 2017 IPED Survey, “56% of users took steroids for improving body image or cosmetic reasons, and the most common demographic for steroid use was males aged 20 – 24.” This statistic highlights how more than half of young adult men are abusing steroids simply for aesthetic purposes, with no intention of using them for their intended purpose of being a sports-enhancing drug. The same survey also found that “45% of steroid use for non-competitive bodybuilding,” also highlighting that average people who don’t compete in bodybuilding competitions were using these anabolic steroids even though they don’t need to, most likely so that they could build their ideal physique. Although it is the case that the majority of steroid users were using them for aesthetic purposes, it’s important to highlight that some were using them for their intended purpose, with “27% of steroid use being attributed to enhancing sports performance” (IPED). Even though some young steroid users were using them for athletic purposes, most used them for conceited intentions of looking a certain way, stemming from social media's unrealistic standards.

Some may argue that steroids can have a good impact on non-competitive athletes, as they do more than just enhance appearance. According to an article by the Mayo Clinic, steroids “might help lower the damage that happens to muscles during a hard workout. That could help athletes bounce back faster from a workout. They might be able to exercise harder and more often”. Although I think it's understandable to take them for this specific purpose, I don’t think it's a necessity for most athletes or gym-goers. According to the Mayo Clinic, the average healthy person only needs “2 to 3  two or three 20- or 30-minute strength training sessions a week”. This would give a person ample time to recover in between workouts, so the need for steroids is nonexistent. Steroids should not be normalized for an average person involved in fitness, and they can cause more harm than good. 

In order to fully grasp how social media perpetuates these unreasonable physique standards, let’s look at the insane bodies many bodybuilding influencers have. Take a look at Figure 1. These are two men known on social media as the TrenTwins. Only 22 years old, these twins have taken social media by storm, amassing 1.9 million followers on their shared account in just a couple of years. Needless to say, they are huge and they are lean. And this shouldn’t be a problem, right? The thing is, this is the physique that countless male fitness influencers have, and when you’re an impressionable teenager who wants to start working out, this image can be detrimental. To put it simply, this body type is not possible for most people, even if you work out naturally for 10 years. If you want to achieve this body, you need steroids. 

 

 Figure 1: Picture of the TrenTwins Posing from @TrenTwinss 

Now imagine you’re a 14-year-old boy. Your best friend just started going to the gym, and he’s already showing results; his biceps are almost twice the size of yours. You’ve been a cross-country runner for most of your life, so you were always skinny, but that never really mattered to you until now. You recently downloaded TikTok, and out of curiosity, you put “fitness” in the search bar. Instantly, your screen fills with videos like the figures shown below. (These are actually the first videos I saw when I searched it myself.). Suddenly, you start questioning your own body. Growing up, people always made comments about your body, “You’re too thin,” your grandma used to say while wrapping her fingers around your wrist. But they never really got to you. Now, it feels different. Everywhere you look, the standard of masculinity is based on how muscular you are. Videos like the one in Figure 2 claim things like “Saturday night activities of a real man,” while in the gym. You start to believe that maybe cross-country isn’t enough. Even though you love the sport, you don’t love the physique it gives you. So, you quit and start lifting weights with your best friend and eating more protein. Six months later, you’re bigger, but not happier. Your feed is flooded with massive fitness influencers, each one more jacked than the last. Your favorites, the TrenTwins, openly talk about using steroids. And you’re left wondering: will you ever be big enough without steroids?

      

What a lot of these young people don’t understand is that the misuse of these steroids could have a long-term effect on their mental health. As we established before, exercise is often attributed to having a positive impact on mental health; however, when people take steroids, they could experience the opposite effect. In 2024, Baris Karagun, a researcher of endocrinology (the study of hormones), and Selin Altug, a researcher of psychology (the study of mind and behavior), conducted a study about the effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids on male bodybuilders’ mental health. They found that “anabolic-androgenic steroids (similar to testosterone) elevated levels of depression and anxiety.” Another 2022 study shows similar results, where researchers from the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen also did a study on anabolic-androgenic steroids effect on men's mental health, finding not only an increase in anxiety and depression, but also neuropsychiatric effects which can cause hallucinations, disruption in motor behaviors, delusions, etc. (Anderson et. al). Steroid use has been on the rise for non-competing bodybuilders, normal people chasing the ideal physique. Alarmingly, steroid use has become common in a lot of gyms. Many people are taking this product without understanding the risks of mental issues, which could lead to dangerous and even deadly results if not treated properly. The steroids used in fitness need to be regulated better, as the abuse of these drugs will cause dire mental health issues for something as simple as one's ideal physique.  

But mental health in relation to bodybuilding and fitness isn’t only about steroids. There is an even more detrimental aspect that can affect people for decades beyond just working out. This is body dysmorphia, a disorder that is “a mental health condition in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance — a flaw that appears minor or can't be seen by others” (Mayo Clinic).  Many people have heard this term in relation to eating disorders like anorexia, a disorder that drives people to want to be extremely thin; however, many don’t realize that this disorder can also pressure people into wanting to be physically bigger. Because many people don’t know the intricacies of this disorder, bodybuilders can neglect that they have the problem. 

To gain a better understanding of the mental health behind bodybuilding, I interviewed Davenport. He is an ex-bodybuilder, sports psychology professor at Keiser University, sports mental health influencer, and the CEO of The Mind.Body.1, a business that helps people become better athletes physically and mentally. Yes, that is a mouthful, but his insight on the fitness industry is life-changing. Feel free to check out his Instagram: @mrmindmuscle. 

My interviewee, Davenport, explained that as someone who both studies psychology and is involved with the fitness industry, he has become well-versed in identifying body dysmorphia and why it can affect people. He explains that “Body dysmorphia is more than not liking your eyes or your legs. We all have something we don’t like about ourselves. When something becomes body dysmorphic, it becomes a hindrance to your everyday life.” This is compelling because it seems many people downplay this mental illness. In my own life I have heard my friends say things like “My butt changes sizes everyday, I must have body dysmorphia” or “My body dysmorphia is so bad today.” There seems to be an overall misunderstanding of what body dysmorphic disorder is and how it actually impacts the sufferer’s life.  Davenport explained it like this, “Imagine you’re a person with body dysmorphia and you don’t like your nose, so you get surgery for it. However, after getting the surgery, you look in the mirror, and you still don’t like your nose. The physical changes will never make it better.” This helps put into perspective how body dysmorphia can have a mental hold on the people that suffer with it, it’s not something that can turn on and off from day to day. It can genuinely ruin people’s perceptions of their physical self for a lifetime.

So, how does body dysmorphia come into play with the newfound mix of bodybuilding and fitness found on social media? Because social media’s fitness industry is based almost entirely on physical appearance, it's easy for people to start feeling like their own bodies aren't good enough, especially when they compare themselves to others with physiques they perceive as superior to their own. When speaking to Davenport about the effects of body dysmorphia, he brought up a term called “manorexia”. From the sounds of it, this term might just sound like men who suffer from anorexia, which could be the case for some people, but when Davenport applied it to bodybuilding, it took on a whole new perspective. He explained it as “Men who have body dysmorphic disorder and want to get bigger, it’s the opposite of anorexia. For example, if there’s a guy that’s 5’5 and 200 pounds of solid muscle, he will look in the mirror and believe he isn’t big enough.” What may seem like an irrational line of thinking to most is a reality for many men involved with both bodybuilding and fitness. Unfortunately, this obsession with personal physique can often turn into other mental health disorders. Davenport further explains this: “His brain obsesses over this image of the best physique, and this disorder can often come with others like OCD. Their brains tell them to obsess over training and what kinds of food they eat.” In the end, the real danger of bodybuilding isn't just the physical strain, it’s the mental effects. When the pursuit of the perfect physique becomes more important than health, the fitness industry can cause more harm than good.

Imagine you’re a bodybuilder and you’re 11 months out from a competition. From the minute you wake up, your brain won’t shut up. “You need to meet your calorie goal or you won’t get big.” Yesterday, MyFitnessPal said you were 500 calories short of what you needed, and that has been looming in your mind since. What was your usual breakfast of oatmeal with blueberries became a protein shake with five raw eggs. Although it disgusts you, your mind races with thoughts that remind you of your past failures. The shake is worth it, at least that’s what you tell yourself. This doesn’t end in the kitchen. Right after you finish your breakfast, your brain jumps to the next problem: the gym. The last time you hit chest, your bench PR dropped from 325 to 315, and you can’t let it go, no matter how hard you try. Your friends try to support you, saying things like “It’s fine, that happens to all of us,” or “You hit 325 once, so you can hit it again,” but they just don’t get it. Today, you’re determined to get a PR above 325, and nothing will stop you. After warming up, you load the bar to 325, and your friends’ eyebrows burrow as his arms cross. “Are you sure you can do that?” he says with concern. You roll your eyes and get into position, intense music blasting through your headphones to block out the noise inside and outside your head. You bring the bar down to your chest with ease, and your confidence builds, and you try to bring the bar back.

 

 Suddenly, you feel a pop in your left pec followed by a sharp, grueling pain.

 

Your arms give out as your chest immediately becomes weak. With adrenaline pumping through your body, the injury doesn’t feel that bad, but you later find out your pectoral muscle ruptured. Your doctor says you cannot train for at least 4 months. Just like that, your competition is gone and possibly your career. But the worst part? You realize it wasn’t just a bad lift or a freak accident. It was body dysmorphic disorder. It was the voice in your head telling you you’re never going to be big. Body dysmorphia is the voice that pushed you past your limits until your body can't take it anymore, and now you have to suffer.

  Body dysmorphia is a real effect of bodybuilding that is having an effect on the fitness industry. To reiterate what Davenport said, there are many mental health problems that come along with it. A very common one is eating disorders, which are “behavioral conditions characterized by severe and persistent disturbance in eating behaviors and associated distressing thoughts and emotions.” (American Psychiatric Organization).​ These can characterize themselves in different ways like anorexia, restricting yourself through starvation, or bulimia, purging your food after you eat. These disorders are extremely dangerous for the well-being of a person, both physically and mentally, and can alter the way you live for years. 

Although eating disorders like anorexia, orthorexia, and bulimia are often associated with women, they often affect men, too. In an NPR interview with NYU psychologist Andrea Vazzana, she explains that eating disorders were thought to be a “10 to 1 female-to-male ratio,” but when looking closer at population-based studies, the ratio was actually “1 male to every 2 or 3 females.” This means the gap is much closer than initially thought. Men are just as likely to experience eating disorders. When asked further about how eating disorders can spread, Vazzana addresses social media and its fitness challenges that grew during and after COVID-19. I know from my personal experience that during COVID-19, a fitness challenge called 75-hard became very popular. This daily challenge centered around working out for 45 minutes twice a day (once inside and once outside), drinking a gallon of water, sticking to a restricted diet, reading at least 10 pages of a book, and taking progress pictures daily to post on social media. Oh, and it's over the course of 75 days. Challenges like this that have come from social media may seem harmless, but they can cause damage in the long run if not done properly. Ultimately, challenges like this risk promoting unreachable standards for the average person. This can contribute to disordered behaviors, especially when balance is overlooked.

Although social media challenges can perpetuate​​ disordered behaviors, like eating disorders, for men in the fitness industry, there are many reasons why an eating disorder may develop. As discussed before, in the social media fitness industry, there have been many impacts made by bodybuilding habits. British fitness influencer and bodybuilder Matt Morsia addresses this in an interview with JOE, a lifestyle network. Morsia states, “I had no idea what I was doing. I essentially just starved myself and went into phases of literally eating very little food” (JOE). This issue of misinformation and lack of education is expanded on in the article by Morsia, he explains that many fitness influencers just show the final product; they don’t explain the healthy ways that one can achieve it. He reveals that his lack of education caused him to have an obsessive outlook on losing weight: “I had no idea about protein, macronutrients, or anything like that. I’ve got quite an all-or-nothing personality, and I think that’s quite common in people with disordered eating.” This miseducation about what it takes to get the ideal physique causes people to develop unhealthy eating habits. When they discover that it takes years to get the body they want, they try to find ways around it. It’s a similar story to steroid use; people always want an easy way to achieve something they want, like an ideal physique. So when people figure out that starving themselves is a faster way to get lean, it seems like the obvious choice. This cycle creates eating disorders, and these take years to recover from. In the end, the pressure to look a certain way, paired with bad advice and unrealistic standards, creates a space where disordered eating feels normal.

If the idea of negative mental health effects creeping into the fitness world makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone. It’s easier to ignore the problem, but the truth is, we need to address it to create a safer space. As bodybuilding keeps getting more popular among young people, especially through social media, it’s important to actually talk about the mental health risks that come with it. Steroid use, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating are more common than a lot of people realize, and they can have long-lasting effects. If we want to make the online fitness industry safer, both mentally and physically, we need to focus on more than just the workouts and meal plans. There needs to be real support, education, and change in the way we talk about fitness.

Here are a few ways we can make changes:

1. Advocate for more realistic fitness content on social media.
   Social media is a huge part of how people get into fitness, but it’s also full of unrealistic and sometimes dangerous advice. Fitness influencers should focus more on long-term health and realistic body goals instead of promoting “ideal physiques”. It would help if more professionals, such as trainers and nutritionists, had more impact on social media.

2. Teach media literacy and body image awareness in schools.
   A lot of teens are seeing these images and messages before they know how to process them. Schools should teach students how to think critically about the fitness content they’re seeing online. Integrating topics that are based on mental health and body image into health classes could help prevent these issues before they start.

3. Make mental health support more available in fitness.
   Whether it’s at school, in a gym, or through sports teams, there should be access to experts who understand the mental health side of fitness, like Davenport. Talking to a psychologist who understands what athletes go through could make a huge difference for someone who’s struggling.

4. Create more supportive gym environments.
   Gyms can help change the culture by posting resources or making it clear that they support healthy goals, not just the “ideal physique”. A peer group or mentorship in gyms could give people a place to talk about pressure and expectations without judgment.

5. Talk honestly about steroids and their risks.
   Instead of just saying “don’t do it,” there needs to be an open and honest education about why some people turn to steroids, what the risks are, and what the alternatives are. If we want people to make better choices, they need real information about how it can affect their lives.

At the end of the day, bodybuilding and fitness don’t have to be dangerous, but to achieve this, we can’t ignore the negative mental effects that it can have. Young people shouldn’t have to sacrifice their mental health just to chase a certain look. In the words of Davenport, “Fitness shouldn’t be something that hinders your health; it should uplift your mental and physical.” With the right support, we can make fitness something that builds people up and has long-term benefits.

They walk across the stage. Their muscles shine under the bright lights, every detail carved to perfection, and the crowd stares in awe, but now that you know everything that goes on behind the scenes, it’s hard to look at it the same way. What once seemed like the pinnacle of strength and discipline now feels like a facade for intense issues. Behind every flex and pose is a person who could be silently battling body dysmorphia, steroid addiction, or the struggles of never feeling good enough. We’re told these bodies are proof of what hard work can achieve, but we rarely know about the costs that go along with it. The truth is, bodybuilding has infiltrated modern male fitness in a way that glamorizes aesthetics over health. And unless we shift the conversation towards realistic expectations, mental health awareness, and better education, that stage will continue to produce more mental health problems than golden medals. It’s time we started looking past the tanning lotion and into the damage it hides beneath the surface of those muscular frames.

 

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Works Cited

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Baris Karagun, and Selin Altug. “Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids Are Linked to Depression and Anxiety in Male Bodybuilders: The Hidden Psychogenic Side of Anabolic Androgenic Steroids.” Annals of Medicine (Helsinki)/Annals of Medicine, vol. 56, no. 1, 8 Apr. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2024.2337717.

 

Barone, Mauro, et al. “Aesthetic Medicine across Generations: Evolving Trends and Influences.” Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 3 Sept. 2024. Pub Med, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-024-04353-y.

 

Begley, Emma, et al. Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs 2016 National Survey Results Survey Co-Ordinated By. Public Health Institute, Nov. 2017.

 

“Cracking the Gen Z Code | HCM Research.” Healthclubmanagement.co.uk, 23 Jan. 2025, www.healthclubmanagement.co.uk/health-club-management-features/Research-Cracking-the-Gen-Z-code/36702#. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.

 

Davenport, Nicholas. Personal Interview. April 14, 2025.

 

Fuller, Jason. “Eating Disorders in Young Men Are Being Masked by Muscle Bulking and Over-Exercising.” NPR, 27 July 2023, www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190578569/eating-disorders-in-young-men-are-being-masked-by-muscle-bulking-and-over-exerci.

 

Guarda, Angela. “What Are Eating Disorders?” American Psychiatric Association, Feb. 2023, www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/eating-disorders/what-are-eating-disorders.

 

Mayo Clinic. “Body Dysmorphic Disorder - Symptoms and Causes.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Clinic Staff, 13 Dec. 2022, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/body-dysmorphic-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353938.

 

Mayo Clinic Staff. "Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Know the Risks." Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 27 June 2023, www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/performance-enhancing-drugs/art-20046134.

 

Mayo Clinic Staff. "Strength Training: Get Stronger, Leaner, Healthier." Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 29 Apr. 2023, www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/strength-training/art-20046670.

 

Roberts, Alex. ““I Was Starving Myself”: One Fitness Influencer’s Eating Disorder Battle.” JOE.co.uk, 30 Dec. 2020, www.joe.co.uk/fitness-health/fitness-influencer-eating-disorder-259391. Accessed 5 May 2025.

 

Shannon, Stephen, et al. “Frequency, Intensity and Duration of Muscle Strengthening Activity and Associations with Mental Health.” Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 325, 11 Mar. 2023, pp. 41–47. Science Direct , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.12.063.

 

Yu, Weijun, et al. “Muscle-Strengthening Exercise Links with Lower Odds for Depression in Adolescents.” International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, vol. 23, no. 2, 10 Feb. 2021, pp. 277–288. Science Direct, www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S146237302100016X, https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2021.016153. Accessed 30 May 2021.