The expectations for what makes the perfect body has been established through the social networks that run society today.

“The media, health, television, and the doctors; they talk about health benefits and how it can improve (your) life,” San Francisco GNC worker, Allen said. “It is the media that is promoting, and people recognizing that it is a good thing and you should go to the gym and exercise.”

However, the concept of earning a stronger body is replaced with the desire to have an eye-appealing body.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all tunnels for people wanting to show off their bodies by putting progression pictures or ideas on how to get fit. It’s less than likely that you will scroll through your social networks and not find a human bodily structure that you enviously want as your own.

People are focusing more on having a body that will attract others, or to put oneself in the position of feeling self-accomplished.

Society pressures individuals into this mindset of acquiring a strong appearance as opposed to a strong health. Therefore, the act of going to the gym becomes nothing more than just a social trend proving ground.

At Equinox in San Mateo, Edrick Annunciacion is regarded as the strongest person in the gym, as said by multiple workers and attendees.

“The gym is just becoming a social establishment where most people go because everybody else is doing it now a days,” Annunciacion said. “When you ask somebody why they go to the gym, they answer, ‘to stay fit,’ when they are not doing that.”

Looking good is not necessarily the wrong reason for going to the gym, but it is not the the best reason for going either. Personal fitness and health should be the top priority to why one attends the gym, while looking good is acquired naturally as a benefit to working out.

The social media aspect of gym attendance is not overlooked. It is the daily feed of fitness pictures that fill our stomachs with the urge to look strong, but not necessarily feel strong. It is just a way to showboat what people have accomplished.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle will never outgrow its purpose, but falling into a society in which one wants to fit in will.