Optimized to exhaustion?

Fitness advice is no longer only found in gyms, magazines or conversations with experts. Today, it often appears between memes, messages and music trends. A workout reel on Instagram, a „What I eat in a day” video on TikTok, a transformation post or a discount code for supplements.

This is why our episode „Optimized to exhaustion? How much self-optimization is good for our body?” looks at the connection between social media, body image and health decisions. The topic affects many young people directly. According to the JIM Study 2025, 68 percent of young people say they regularly spend more time on their smartphone than they originally planned. The same study shows that 63 percent use Instagram regularly and 53 percent use TikTok. These are exactly the platforms where fitness videos, transformation content and supplement advertising spread especially quickly and visually. At the same time, WHO Europe reports that problematic social media use among adolescents has increased from seven percent in 2018 to eleven percent in 2022. Among girls, the figure is even higher, at 13 percent, compared with nine percent among boys.

Still, the answer is not simply to avoid social media altogether. Fitness content can motivate, inspire and create a sense of community. The crucial question is: How can we learn to check what we see before we believe it, follow it or buy it? One helpful tool is the Fake Shop Finder by the Verbraucherzentrale. Users can enter the web address of an online shop, and the site gives an assessment using a traffic-light system. This can be especially useful for supplements, because many products are bought through links from social media, discount codes or unfamiliar online shops. Warning signs include extremely time-limited offers, missing legal information, shipping from abroad or products that promise dramatic results. The Fake Shop Finder does not replace personal judgement, but it can be a useful first step before spending money or entering personal data.

The same mindset also applies to fitness advice itself. Serious information is often less simple than viral content, because bodies are different. What may be useful for one person can be unnecessary or even problematic for another. Shaping the future, in this case, means learning to pause, question and make decisions based on health rather than pressure.