A new vision of health

It’s hard to talk about health advertising without immediately talking about bodies. 

As a culture, we are obsessed with bodies. How they look, what clothes they fit into, how they rate on a numerical scale that correlates to desirability, health, fitness, and strength. How many of those numerical scales there are and what makes each of those measures relevant. 

We have to remove perfection and replace it with reality.

When health is tied so firmly to bodies, and not just how they work, but how they look, most of the advertising about health remains fixated on how to, for the lack of a better term, fix the body you have. There’s a sense of wrong-ness to bodies as if the one you have isn’t good enough or strong enough or sexy enough. When disassociated from our own ideals, the feeling that bodies, in general, are determined to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feels strange and seems even stranger when we talk about health, which is known to be individual, hard-to-define, and unique. 

So just like health isn’t one size fits all, neither are bodies. 

And that’s where The Garden comes in. Associate Creative Directors, Lindsay Eady, and Francheska Galloway-Davis took on a unique challenge for FitTrack, a relatively new startup in the wearable health tech space. Eady and Galloway-Davis also served as the copywriter and Art Director on One Size Fits One, respectively. With a product that was focused on numbers and data, how do you present an emotional storyline about healthy bodies without fixating on numbers? 

 We wanted to move beyond the idea that you’re brave to put on a bathing suit because you’re of average size

The answer, it turns out, was pretty simple. “We wanted to make sure that we showed all different kinds of bodies, doing a full range of athletic things,” Eady said. “We wanted to showcase diversity and representation in the health and fitness space in order to change the perception of what an "ideal body" can look like.” 

The key to The Garden’s success with FitTrack occurred when they expanded the scope and changed the lens.

Eady pointed that most people don’t see themselves represented as healthy in the fitness advertising space. Fitness is, after all, about improvement. Pushing yourself every day to be healthy. Losing weight is often used to depict this improvement, but to present bodies that are fat, that have cellulite, that roll when bent over but are still improving every single day; that’s a new change to health advertising. 

There are hundreds of athletes who aren’t being represented, who aren’t seen, and who don’t see themselves in health advertising

“[Seeing diverse people in health ads] is a surreal feeling and a cause for celebration,” says Krystle Chance, one of the yogis featured in the ad, “Youth from all cultures and walks of life are now getting the opportunity to see themselves represented in media. An experience that was few and far between for myself growing up.”

“People are tired of chasing an ideal,” Galloway-Davis points out. “Fitness and Health advertising has pushed this for years, and we’re seeing the emotional and physical toll of that chase. We feel shitty about it! We feel like we’re not good enough. We can’t achieve this “ideal” because it’s not our ideal.” 

Changing the narrative, she says, is important for everyone. There’s a hamster wheel in the back of our minds that keeps repeating that health equals image rather than happiness. 

It says something when people who had seen the storyboards, who knew the script, were still shocked that the athletes would be able to perform.

“It’s a lie,” Eady says bluntly, “something that people tell themselves because advertising has told them to say it.”

“Health advertising is powerful,” Galloway-David explains, “and it’s affected us—our self-esteem, our self-valuation—for far too long. We need to change the narrative now, not just for ourselves, but for the next generation, so that they can grow up knowing that health comes in all shapes and sizes. I want [my daughters] to feel strong and beautiful in the bodies they have, but everyone has to be responsible for that messaging.”

So how do we change the story? 

“By recognizing that every body is different,”  Galloway-Davis states. “By saying to ourselves, and through fitness advertising, that the healthiest strongest version of your own body is the ideal body.” She goes on to say that it was refreshing to be reminded that you can be healthy and have cellulite, stretch marks, extra skin. “Having all that, all that normal body stuff, it’s not something that we’ve ever had associated with health advertising. Instead, I’ve got to say “I’ve had two kids, my body is awesome.” Health is about capability. It’s about deciding 'When do we love ourselves'?”

This is coming from a former bodybuilder, for the record. She’s grinning as she talks, passionate about the work she's done. Galloway-Davis is delighted that she’s showing what healthy looks like, that she’s representing that for others, and actively changing the industry for her children. It’s exciting.  

When health is tied so firmly to bodies, and not just how they work, but how they look, most of the advertising about health remains fixated on how to fix the body you have.

“The work shows that fitness is more than your shape and size. It is a way of thinking and a lifestyle. The physical body is only one aspect of Health and wellness. It doesn’t have to be a limitation,” says Chance. This is something that The Garden wanted to highlight—that tackling health and body size is difficult because, these parts of people are the easiest way to indicate health, however much health and weight are only aspects of health, or not even an accurate measure of it. The health industry’s obsession with bodies is limiting. 

“You can buy it, but you can’t build it,” Eady cuts in, smiling. “Sometimes, celebrities pay to change their bodies—they have time, surgeons, personal trainers, dieticians, professional chefs. Who can expect to keep up with that?” 

Health advertising is powerful and it’s affected us—our self-esteem, our self-valuation—for far too long.

In the One Size Fits One campaign for FitTrack, a particular emphasis is on what advertising would call ‘non-traditional bodies’.

“There’s a lot of empty representation out there,” Eady explains, “A lot of ads where people with diverse bodies are just hanging out. We wanted to move beyond the idea that you’re brave to put on a bathing suit because you’re of average size.”