For decades, women have been asking about the mythical “summer body” – no toned arms, abs or cellulite. Some people also talk about calling this narrow goal “swimsuit preparation” or having a “beach body.” In the months leading up to the much-anticipated season, the pressure to fit this arbitrary mold through gym ads and the latest dieting trends felt enormous. Getting fit was a prerequisite for enjoying the warm weather and taking a vacation.
In the 2010s, brands and media have challenged this expectation, from body-positive advertising campaigns to Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issues. However, recently, the introduction of weight loss-promoting GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has felt that the message has been lost in the current fitness and wellness boom. Today, being healthy has not been relegated to months of the year.
With viral challenges such as 75 difficult training methods such as “4-2-1”, social media has become messy with routines and time-efficient hacks to lose weight throughout the year, with new trends going viral every month. Even in colder months, we recommend that you do a productive version of hibernation and prepare our bodies in warmer seasons. Furthermore, since the pandemic, fitness has become a bigger part of social life. From running clubs to Pilates classes, health and wellness became an opportunity to connect and hang out with friends. Social media is flooded with wellness content, including the Make America Healthy Again move. It goes without saying that weight loss hacks disguised in wellness languages such as “gut cleansing” and “detox.”
In any case, the message around your body is clear right now. We always need to fine-tune the appearance.
Overall, the “summer” or “beach body” appears to have become a year-round body, with no endpoints visible. For many, the flood of workout routines has caused fatigue. Has the pressure to shape it for the summer reduced, or did we replace it with something more toxic?
It is said that we are always working on our bodies
For a long time, losing weight feels cyclical, with many Americans exercising and dieting on the same schedule. Spring is known to be the peak of gym attendance, but summer months tend to be slower. Similarly, it's equally lax about thinking and caring about what our bodies look like during the winter when people stay indoors or travel on holidays. In January we flocked back to the gym and made many fitness goals into New Year's resolutions.
Today, experts and gym participants say this rhythm has changed. The gym is always packed. Pilates classes are fully booked. Tiktok is constantly introducing new methods, whether at home or at the gym. Today, wandering around with friends and even meeting new people often makes me sweat.
“The gym is definitely always busy,” says Bobby McMullen, trainer and founder of fitness app Adonis. “When the weather starts to warm up, it's not just that peak times drop. People are undoubtedly integrating fitness into their daily social life.”
McMullen says that following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been reported to be more active around the world, we have come to “value the year-long importance of gyms.” “We essentially worked for two years all year round,” says McMullen.
Researchers found that these increases in fitness habits are driven primarily by ZZ, a cohort formed by the pandemic. In a 2023 survey by McKinsey & Company, 56% of Gen Z consumers said fitness is a very high priority for them. Possible causes include increased early childhood exposure to early childhood fitness trends and other health-related content.
“Tictok has made the diet culture more broad and personal,” says Isabel Krug, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Melbourne. “Trends like what I eat in a day, gut health cleansing, or growth-up routines are endlessly repeated and algorithmically strengthened. There are also event-based trends like weddings and bikini countdowns, which are often associated with programs that personal trainers and apps sell.”
Furthermore, Krug says that the increase in GLP-1 like Ozempic and Mounjaro is only added to this pursuit of infinite thinness for weight loss. The accessibility of these drugs is a miracle for some, giving people with pre-diabetic or certain BMIs an easier route to weight loss. But for people who can't afford these drugs or who have a bad response to them, their popularity only adds to the sense of exclusion. According to Krug, these drugs “swelled expectations and lowered the threshold of what they think they could achieve in their own body.”
“If weight loss is a single injection, what excuse is not thin?” she says.
Summer is still a bad time for body image
Still, these year-round efforts to thinned out didn't get close to their hottest seasons. Krug discovered that summer is still the peak time for body image issues. In a 2021 survey titled “Beach Body Ready? Shredding for Summer?”, first looking at “seasonal body images,” Krug and other researchers reported a significant increase in physical dissatisfaction in the months before summer, especially for younger women.
“We found that participants consistently reported increased satisfaction with appearance, greater motivation for thinness, and increased involvement in appearance-related social comparisons during this season,” Krug told Vox.
The pressures throughout the year may have changed, but that's not the case for certain stressors in June, July and August. “Summer means a more visible body, and its vision often gives it judgment,” says Krug. “People are expected to be appreciated for their narrow beauty ideals, centered around tightening, tanning and easy-to-attractiveness.”
Aside from wearing less clothes, people also hope to be in more social environments, especially in big events where they plan to take photos. For example, Beyoncé fans have posted videos to their own Tiktok to fit her Cowboy Carter Tour themed outfit. Summer is also the peak of weddings, and therefore fitness plans such as “shredding for weddings.”
Body Positive Fitness Trainer Kelsey Ellis says the fashion industry has played a historical role in eradicating these seasonal anxiety by “using thin models in swimsuit ads and gifting products to straight-sized influencers.”
The 2010s provided some rest from these toxic stories. The body's positive movements have made some advances in challenging this expectation. The phrase “All bodies are beach bodies” has become a popular retort, but with the number of clothing lines increasing, swimsuits, including bikini, create a plus-sized body. Despite more brands retreating from the summer body narrative, Ellis said, “it's becoming more difficult for individuals in Tiktok to avoid promoting the same message.
“The pressure hasn't gone away,” Ellis says. “It's become more subtle and user-generated. Most of the harmful messages I see are from influencers, fitness creators and ordinary people, especially with the rise of hashtags like GLP-1 weight loss pills and #skinnytok.”
It's strange to look back at past negative body messages with all sorts of affection. At the very least, the concept of “summer body” had concrete goals with clear endpoints, giving myself the opportunity to rest. Now our bodies have become a never-ending project without a marker of completion. It's far from the ideal version of Infinite Summer.
