Rethinking Behavior Change Sustainability: Sociality in Fitness and Health
Disclaimer
The information in this article is for educational purposes only and is filled with personal reflections as a CSEP Clinical Exercise Physiologist and coach. I am not a mental health professional. Any discussion of behavior change, motivation, or psychology is general in nature and should not be taken as mental health advice. If you’re navigating deeper struggles, a mental health professional is the best person to guide you.
This blog discusses topics related to food and health that may be triggering or sensitive to some. Such as weight stigma, disordered eating, and social comparison. We’ll be talking about motivation, identity, and how people frame their choices. If reflecting on these topics feels heavy or uncomfortable, take a pause and come back when you’re ready.
The Current Discussion Around Sociality in Fitness and Health
In fitness and health culture today, a very common mantra being shared is “do it for yourself”. This messaging is everywhere: coaching circles, gym murals, social media posts, clinics, and more. It’s not a bad message. In fact, it’s quite powerful. Encouraging people to engage in fitness from a place of autonomy and intrinsic drive helps protect them from being consumed by comparison, or the need to please others.
This messaging directly counters the toxic themes of fitness culture years ago. These include the “no pain, no gain” mentality, or the hyper-fixation on abusing fitness to fit unrealistic social body standards. These themes, rooted in shame, have not only been proven to be less effective at helping others sustain behavior change, but can be harmful and stigmatizing. These toxic attitudes can further damage relationships with health-related behaviors – leading to a worsening of health outcomes.
If you’ve seen the recently popular Netflix docuseries “Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser”, you probably noticed how poorly the contestants were treated, and how drastically the views on health and fitness in general have shifted from less than a decade ago.
The show touches on shame and weight stigma, and how it influences long-term sustainability. This blog isn’t about weight stigma directly, but If you are interested in reading more on this topic, here are just some interesting papers on how weight stigma can impact health behavior sustainability and health outcomes directly:
Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4
But can this attempt to create more benevolent messaging go too far? The idea of trying to eliminate harmful social influence, if miscommunicated or misunderstood, can lead to the message being interpreted as the avoidance of any social influence. The “don’t do it for anyone but yourself” mentality creates a polarizing discussion: what if attempting to completely strip social influence from the equation of behavior change makes the behavior less likely to be sustained? What if social influence is unavoidable? If so, how can we work towards leveraging sociality to sustain new behaviours without creating a harmful environment?
The goal of this blog is to think about these questions. I will preamble this by saying everyone is a learner in the field of behavior change, including myself. The research on behavior change is ever growing, and there is much that is unknown in the field. I can speak from my lived experience and give you food for thought, but how you interpret my thoughts on these questions is up to you.
To help think about these questions, we can look to some of the theories around behavior change.
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)
An outdated, but well-known framework for understanding why people change (and sustain) behaviors is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This framework was developed by Icek Ajzen in the late 1980s, which is before the massive boom in preventative health care research. TPB suggests that three key factors shape whether someone sustains a behavior:
Attitudes towards the behavior
Do I believe this action will lead to positive outcomes?
Perceived behavioral control
Do I feel capable of doing it, given my skills and circumstances?
Subjective norms
Do I believe the people who matter to me expect me to engage in this behavior? Do they respect this behavior?
It’s this third factor, “subjective norms”, that this blog is focusing on. According to TPB, the sense that a behavior is socially valued or expected makes us more likely to start and, more importantly for this blog, sustain the behavior.
Research supports this. Social norms have been shown to contribute to everything from exercise adherence, smoking cessation, and dietary habits. Humans remain deeply influenced by our social environment.
Where TPB Falls Short
That said, TPB isn’t without limitations. It assumes humans make rational decisions based on weighing outcomes and social expectations in a vacuum. It also puts emphasis on personal responsibility. But much of human behavior in health and fitness is habitual, emotional, and context dependent.
More modern frameworks capture this complexity better:
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) distinguishes between extrinsic motivation (doing something for external rewards or approval) and intrinsic motivation (doing it because it aligns with your values or feels good). SDT research has shown that intrinsic motivation is more robust long term. But extrinsic motivators, like social reinforcement, can still play a supportive role if they don’t feel coercive.
COM-B Model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behavior) is where the ‘vacuum thinking’ in TPB gets corrected for. Opportunity, which includes social opportunity, is a key piece. Without supportive environments and norms, even strong intrinsic motivation won’t be enough.
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) focuses on the social aspect of learning behaviors. Speaking on how social norms and modelling shapes our behaviors. However, unlike TPB, SCT also acknowledges that access within your community, among other environmental factors, influence whether you practice and learn new behaviors.
So, while TPB highlights the importance of social influence, newer and less outdated models remind us that we need a balance. Autonomy, internal drive, but also environments that normalize new health-supporting behaviors are essential to sustain them.
Sport as an Example of Social Influence
One rather extreme example of how social structures shape behavior comes from the world of sport. Sport, at its core, is a social creation. There are rules and competitions all constructed by communities. Without community agreements, a deadlift is just picking something up and a soccer game is just people kicking a ball around.
There is of course a plethora of reasons why an athlete does what they do. However, to adhere to the rigorous and often extreme behaviors required to succeed takes more than willpower. It takes the powerful influence of social norms.
In a competitive environment, showing up to training is a default expectation. Especially in team-based sports, missing a practice isn’t just personally skipping, it’s breaking the social norm.
An athlete’s identity and self-view is reinforced by society. Others see themselves as athletes, reinforcing that internal view.
Especially in team or community-based sports, social modelling is frequent. Athlete’s see teammates push through long sessions and coaches put effort into planning. That social expectation creates accountability.
Balancing External Pressure and External Influence
So, on one end, the rise of intrinsic motivation in fitness messaging has been a necessary correction. For too long, people were driven by fear and shame, often leading to disordered relationships with exercise and food. Now, internal reasons like confidence, energy, and vitality help to protect against these harms and create self-reliant sustainability.
But on the other end, if the conversation reduces to only intrinsic motivation, we risk a different type of problem. Humans are social beings who have always relied on community for survival of the species, purpose, and self-identity.
So where does the balance lie?
Too much external pressure may lead to shame and burnout, leading to worse health outcomes.
Too little external influence may leave people without reinforcement, accountability, or social modeling.
For example, someone might start strength training to feel stronger (intrinsic), but the encouragement of their friend noticing progress often reinforces that habit (extrinsic).
A senior might start strength training to recover from an injury, but after seeing someone their age building bone mineral density online they might continue after the fact.
Another person may enjoy running for stress relief, but joining a running group increases the likelihood they’ll keep showing up.
So, it’s time to rethink this polarized conversation:
Sociality doesn’t have to mean comparison; it can mean connection.
How to Leverage Sociality to Sustain New Behaviors Without Amplifying Harm
It should be clear that social influence is powerful and growing increasingly more so. So, I have listed some possible strategies below, but I am interested to hear your thoughts. Let me know some of your strategies in the comments.
Regularly assess and adjust your inputs.
We have the power to decide some of our inputs. You can block certain content on social media, adjust your following list, or filter comments on your posts. You can also attempt to reach out or surround yourself with people who normalize behaviors. Friends, coworkers, or teammates who view movement as a part of everyday life can go a long way if your goal is to move more.
Share your progress, not your superiority.
Social media doesn’t have to be a place to talk about your habits and show off. Done honestly, it can simply model what’s possible. Many people engaging with social media have the power to be the representation or encouragement they are looking for.
Acknowledge who you lead.
Social influence is built from a collection of small and repeated cues, not one large act. Whether it be your kids, your partner, your coworkers, your classmates, or your friends. Your actions and conversations can subtly set a tone.
Balance and understand your motivations.
It’s okay to work out to feel good in your body and to also feel proud when others notice your effort. Intrinsic motivations and social motivations can work together rather than against each other when they aren’t rooted in shame. However, this means developing your intrinsic motivation, and not allowing social motivations take the front seat.
How Values Shape What Influences Us
It's clear behavior change is a complex topic, especially when you try to separate concepts that aren’t mutually exclusive.
Behavior change isn’t driven by a single concept - both intrinsic and extrinsic influences often overlap.
One way of thinking about behavior change sustainability is through congruency framing or framing behaviors to align with values that already exist. For example, someone may not care about “being active” as an abstract goal, but they value adventure or time in nature, so they frame hiking or cycling as ways to live those values. In this case, fitness becomes an indirect outcome rather than the focus, and that individual may be more impacted by messaging or social influence that aligns with nature or adventure, rather than fitness.
Take a second to reflect and ask yourself these questions:
“How do I frame the behaviors I have been trying to engage in?”
“What internal values create a drive to engage in or sustain these behaviors?”
“How can I adjust my social or external influence to align with my values?”
These intrinsic factors change how we interact with social trends or external rewards, yet both pathways can produce real and lasting behavior change. The key difference is that congruence framing and intrinsic values aligns effort to self-identity, whereas extrinsic motivators align effort to context.
Here are some articles and interesting studies on framing health-related messaging: Article 1, Article 2
The Bigger Picture
I hope this blog helped you think about behavior change in a new lens. In our overly connected world, social influence is stronger than ever. Our communities are no longer just family and neighbors; they are online communities across the globe. Pretending social influence doesn’t matter and striving for its avoidance is just unrealistic. Not only this, but it could risk leaving people with social influence rooted in shame.
So, quite possibly, the healthiest path isn’t to reject sociality in favor of pure autonomy, nor to fall back into pure shame-based comparison. It’s to recognize both internal and external forces exist and work best when cooperating in tandem. Instead of separating them, designing environments and systems that allow them to work together may contribute to an increased likelihood for behaviors to be sustained.
