Social media fitness sites offer support, motivation

Editor’s note: This story originally was published March 12, 2014 in the Chicago Sun-Times.

When social media and fitness intersect, what comes to mind?

If it’s #thinspiration shots of models on Pinterest and in-your-face gym mirror selfies posted by bodybuilders, you wouldn’t be totally wrong.

Often, those images of perfection leave people feeling inadequate and discourage them from hitting the gym.

But a growing number of entrepreneurs are figuring out how to tap into social media to ignite motivation. As exercise has become more social — think mud runs with friends, or “sweatworking” with business contacts — many push themselves harder because their peers hold them to it.

Read the story.

The Latest
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”