This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here . Tripods and cameras are scattered between the weights and benches in a Mississauga gym.
It's common to find fitness influencers at First Health Club — recording videos of themselves pumping iron to post on social media. Among them is Chelsey Berestecki, 25, a young mom who only started posting fitness content on TikTok and Instagram a few months ago, after years of consuming such content while she tried to lose weight. "When I had my son in 2017, I gained a lot of weight with the pregnancy.
I was 260 pounds," she said. "Over the past four years, I've lost over 100 pounds." "I would look at TikTok influencers in the fitness industry and kind of .
.. feel like that's the kind of life I want to live.
" It's a feeling that she says often pushed her to eat healthier and go to the gym, even when she didn't want to. Only a few months since she's started posting, she already has over 8,000 followers — and growing — on TikTok. While it's been positive for her, online fitness content often has negative messages.
Posts can be misleading. At worst, they can actively cause harm, whether through encouraging extreme dieting or recommending exercises that are not safe for everyone. Despite the growing popularity of fitness influencers, their health impacts have not been well r.