This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you appreciate the content here, please consider supporting the newsletter by subscribing and/or sharing!
In Part 1 I talked about Beachbody’s supposed rebrand to “Bodi” to focus on health. I signed up for the 14-day free trial to check it out myself. I was holding out hope that perhaps they really were moving away from their weight loss focus, but all of those hopes evaporated after two minutes of scrolling the site.
I like dance fitness, so I started with ‘Cize, which I had seen commercials for while in hotels for speaking gigs pre-COVID.
A picture of thin people dancing with their arms over their heads Text: “cize(tm) The End Of Exercise. Shaun T and his crew bring the dance studio to you to teach you real choreographed dance workouts. You’ll have so much fun dancing and losing weight you’ll forget you’re actually working out.”
Picture of thin people dancing with their arms down. Text: Program Overview 90 workouts, 30-50Mins/day Beginner. Program Includes Dance, Cardio, Bodyweight Training, Recovery, Weight Loss, Core. Equipment Needed Yoga Mat
So…. two mentions of weight loss, zero mentions of health. And zero representation of higher-weight people.
If you scroll further down the program page for ‘Cize you get more of the same:
Two pictures of thin women holding food with brand names 2B Mindset and Portion Fix. Text: Nutrition for a Healthier Body and Mind. Beachbody’s nutrition programs have made it easier for millions of people to eat healthier and make simple lifestyle changes that are easy to stick with. Created by Autumn Calabrese, Portion Fix shows you how eating the right portions helps you reach your goals—no counting calories or eliminating your favorite foods required. With 2B Mindset, creator Ilana Muhlstein, MS, RDN, helps you lose weight happily by focusing on what you can eat, instead of what you can’t. You’ll never feel hungry or deprived. Need help choosing the right nutrition program for you? To find the right program for your lifestyle, visit [redacted]
You may remember these two from Part 1 where I went more into depth about this -once again the focus is on weight loss and they are using Beachbody, not Bodi.
By the way, I tried their food plan quiz. It asked me to choose my goals and the first option was…you guessed it…weight loss. Pro-tip - no matter what you choose, you’re going to get one of the food programs that tout weight loss - maybe that’s why weight loss is the first goal they suggest.
Finally in case somehow we weren’t clear that Beachbody/Bodi/whatever they are calling it this week is a weight loss company, at the bottom of the ‘Cize page, as in almost every page, is a before and after picture (well, based on the research it’s more of a before and during, without the picture of the almost inevitable weight regain.)
But ‘Cize is an older program, surely their new programs fit in with their message of being about health for every body, right?
I checked out their “New and Recommended” section:
Picture of thin people sitting on the floor lifting dumbbells over their heads. Text: Chop Wood Carry Water Sample Workout Program Overview 20 workouts 24-40min/day, all levels Works well for Athletic Training, Mobility & Flexibility, Strength, Muscle Building, Slim & Sculpt
Slim and sculpt huh? Sounds like weight loss to me. Let’s try the next one:
Picture of thin people lunging and lifting dumbbells over their heads Text: Sure Thing Sample Workout Program Overview 8 weeks, 30-45 mins/day, intermediate Works Well For Strength, Muscle Building, Slim & Sculpt, Athletic Training, Weight loss, Bodyweight… Equipment Required Dumbbells (light, medium, heavy,) strength slides
In case you didn’t get that “slim and sculpt” means weight loss, they just come out and say weight loss in this one. Let’s try another:
Thin people working out with one arm extended. Text “XB Sweat + Sculpt Sample Workout Program Overview 15 Workouts, 30 Min/Day, Intermediate Works Well For Cardio, Dance, Slim & Sculpt, Weight Loss. Equipment Required Ankle Weights, Resistance Loops
Sigh. It’s all weight loss, all the time with these people. They even bragged about having a trainer (whose program is actually called “Start Losing It”) who was a trainer on The Biggest Loser, a show dedicated to the emotional and physical abuse of fat people for profit, with research to show that they failed to create long-term, sustained weight loss.
They prompted me to sign up for a “coach” and I did. I got an email about my “Team Beachbody” (not Bodi) coach. I looked her up. Her social media centers around before and after pictures and her “online business.” This seems like a good time to remember that Beachbody is an MLM and that people can become “wellness coaches” (in some places referred to as Bodi Partners) by paying $39.95 to start and then $15.95 per month then “Each time you sell a BODi product, you earn up to 25 percent commission. Total-Solution Packs, however, lets [sic] you earn commissions up to 35 percent. If you choose to create an organization of Partners, you can qualify to earn bonuses from their sales activity.”)
Finally, I looked at the Beachbody Challenge page, which was just a page of more before and before-the-weight-regain pictures.
I don’t mean to belabor this point, but many people, myself included but also those who have been doing this work since before I was born and/or with far less privilege than I, have been working to transform the fitness industry away from selling doomed-to-fail weight loss and toward being honest about the ways that engaging in movement (which is not an obligation or barometer of worthiness) might support people. When a company like Beachbody, (whose stock-in-trade has been and, obviously, continues to be, spreading anti-fatness through MLM pyramids of people,) tries to co-opt anti-weight stigma work to sell weight loss, they are co-opting the work of fat people to sell more anti-fatness, and we have to notice that and call it out in the most certain of terms, otherwise it will continue unabated and our work will be used to lure people into pathetic attempts to rebrand diet culture.
Did you find this post helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future posts delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button below for details:
Like the piece? Share the piece!
More research and resources:
https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/
*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da’Shaun Harrison’s Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this.
Wow, this is so gross. I didn’t realize this was an MLM, either. I once had a chiropractor start to get shitty about weight loss (keto! Low carb! They’re they only way! Nevermind that I haven’t asked about your current diet or medical issues!), and he pointed to his daughter running the front desk and said she does beachbody and lost 150 lbs. The whole thing was awkward and shitty, but suggesting an MLM is even shadier.
Quick accessibility note: idk how blind and low vision folks feel about this, but I love alt text and descriptions because I have cellular internet and pics load slow. If the pic has text that includes a URL, I think it’s fine and helpful to include that in the transcription, but to prevent from generating traffic or a clickable URL, it could be spelled out as “gross diet MLM dot com.” Or, alternately, if it’s redacted in the description, redact it in the image, too.
“Stock and trade” is a common malapropism for “stock-in-trade” which I believe is what you meant to say…