2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy

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2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy
Ben Carpenter and Hayley Madigan at some of their leanest times.Ben Carpenter/Hayley Madigan
  • Having a "ripped" physique should not be equated with being fit and healthy, according to two personal trainers.
  • In fact, the stereotypical "fitness" image of a six-pack and low body fat levels can often be due to bad health.
  • For Hayley Madigan, a "shredded" body came at the cost of her mental health, and she was the least healthy she'd ever been.
  • Ben Carpenter, meanwhile, suffers from Crohn's and inflammatory bowel diseases, which makes it hard to put on weight, but people still see his physique as "fitness goals."
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Picture a fit and healthy person, and most people imagine someone with rippling abs, bulging biceps, and defined legs.

But sometimes — often, in fact — the physique we associate with peak health comes through adopting an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle, two personal trainers told Insider.

For Hayley Madigan, getting "shredded" came at the cost of both her mental and physical health. Meanwhile, Ben Carpenter's leanest times have been a result of an underlying chronic health condition.

They told Insider we need to stop equating leanness with health and fitness.

The leanest, most shredded people are often struggling with their mental health

Five years ago, personal trainer Hayley Madigan was the leanest she'd ever been, weighing around 50kg (110lbs). She successfully competed in bikini competitions for three years.

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Madigan, now 30, has been in a much healthier place for the past two years (she now weighs around 60kg (132lbs)), but says that many people considered her former body to be "fitness goals," despite her mental health suffering drastically.

2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy
Hayley Madigan at her leanest.Hayley Madigan

"I had a shredded six-pack and you could see all of my muscles, and in the fitness industry this was deemed as achieving good results, but actually I was the unhealthiest I have ever been," she told Insider.

Strict dieting and twice-daily workouts led Madigan to lose her period for three years due to the stress her body was under. She weighed everything she ate and obsessively tracked calories, and she never socialized.

"I wasn't eating enough for my body to function at its full potential and was continuously lethargic, low in mood, low in energy, hungry, and obsessively thinking about when my next meal was," Madigan said.

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"I trained because 'I had to' not because I enjoyed it or for health benefits, I trained to look a certain way."

2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy
Madigan now leads a healthier lifestyle.Hayley Madigan

Because Madigan didn't let herself go to restaurants or events where she couldn't control her food, she distanced herself from friends and family and became very isolated, all in the pursuit of physique "perfection."

"It led me to being very depressed and also highly anxious when anything was brought up about food or the way I ate," Madigan said.

"I may have looked like I was 'fit' but I was so unhealthy, my bone health was depleting due to my loss of menstrual cycle, my hair, skin, and nails were affected, and my overall health was reducing due to not feeding my body the nutrients it needed."

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A lean body can be the result of underlying health conditions

For some people, having low body fat levels is a reminder that they have an underlying health condition.

One such person is Ben Carpenter, a personal trainer who has suffered from Crohn's and inflammatory bowel diseases for years, and finds it difficult to put on weight as a result.

He's received the most compliments on his physique during his worst flare-ups.

2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy
Ben Carpenter during a particularly lean period.Ben Carpenter

"I was a personal trainer and in 'good shape' by stereotypical cultural standards: fairly muscular and with a six-pack," Carpenter told Insider. "I often had clients hiring me because they said they wanted to look like me."

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But when Carpenter, now 33, had his first intense bout of inflammatory bowel disease around the age of 20, he spent six nights in the hospital over a matter of months, and lost around 22kg (48lbs) in body weight.

"I was extremely frail and was so weak that I once fell over on the stairs in the middle of the night and couldn't stand up on my own, even when there was a handrail for me to pull on," Carpenter said.

"I sat there stranded calling for help until my brother came to assist me. It was a far cry from my fittest and healthiest period."

2 personal trainers who have struggled with their health explain why a 'shredded' physique doesn't always mean someone is healthy
Ben Carpenter around the age of 21.Ben Carpenter

Carpenter faces an ongoing struggle whereby many foods don't agree with him, passing straight through the body, which has led to malnourishment and anemia so severe that his body didn't respond to prescription-strength iron tablets, and he required infusions in the hospital.

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"A lot of people see my low levels of body fat and automatically assume I am in very good health," said Carpenter.

"I also receive a lot of comments and messages on social media from people who ask what the 'secret' is to obtain my physique.

"The funny thing is, a lot of people who have much higher body fat levels than me would be much healthier, objectively."

Disordered eating is rife within the fitness industry

Whether you're a personal trainer or an influencer, when fitness is your career and way of paying the bills, there's a real pressure to keep your body in the peak, "perfect" condition.

"In the personal training industry, it's common to hear 'the way you look is your best business card,'" said Carpenter.

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Disordered eating is rife within the fitness industry, he said, and a lot of trainers and influencers feel pressure to be lean to get more business.

Being shredded as fuck isn't healthy. Back when I was a young, influential teenager (and my hair cut resembled that of a young Justin Bieber rather than Ellen DeGeneres) I perused fitness magazines with aspirations of looking like the shredded dudes on the cover. To me, that is what the pinnacle of "fitness" was. A lot of people will resonate with the idea that ultra low levels of body fat feel synonymous with health and fitness. But, the extreme physique world is focused on aesthetics, not health. Hardcore bodybuilding endeavours can result in poor relationships with food, higher levels of body dissatisfaction and worse health outcomes. This shouldn't really be surprising. When your life is dedicated towards chasing the "perfect" physique, it is natural to become hyper critical about how you look, trying to improve anything you consider a "weak point". Not necessarily a big deal. It is a sport. Hardcore dedication towards any endeavour could come with side effects, right? But, in the fitness world, these people (myself included) commonly find themselves being looked at as role models, whether it is intentional or not. If you follow a lot of people who bodybuild competitively, you may have a skewed sense of what health actually looks like. You may also be following people who are happy to make extreme social sacrifices that are entirely unnecessary for you. I have nothing against bodybuilding, at all. But I do think it is important that people are transparent about the negative side effects of physique endeavours. Fair?

A post shared by Ben Carpenter (@bdccarpenter) on Aug 4, 2020 at 10:08am PDT

"The fitness industry places a disproportionately heavy emphasis on how you look rather than on physical or mental health," Carpenter said.

"I have felt this myself and, combined with the desire to rebound after periods of crippling illness, I focused extremely hard on trying to achieve physique goals that I don't think are sensible for most people to strive for."

Like Madigan, in the past Carpenter has pushed his body to extremes in the pursuit of physique goals, developing a binge and restrict mindset and an unhealthy relationship with food.

"Contest prep diets have the possibility to exacerbate eating disorder symptoms and a lot of people won't realize this until they get to that point," he said.

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'Assuming someone's health status based on how they look is not reliable'

While it's true that being overweight can lead to a range of health issues — a subject which is at the forefront of many people's minds following research linking obesity with increased risk of death from COVID-19 — being very lean is not necessarily a sign of good health.

Carpenters cites the following example:

A person could be a smoker in a sedentary job, never do any exercise, be highly stressed, regularly drink alcohol, and eat a nutrient-poor diet, but maintain a low weight by keeping their overall calories at maintenance.

Similarly, that person could change their lifestyle drastically by moving more, decreasing their stress levels, cutting back on booze, and eating a nourishing diet, but if their overall calorie intake doesn't change, their weight won't change — though their overall health would.

Skinny and healthy are not synonymous. ⠀ Weight loss is hyperfocused on as a point of health, while ignoring a multitude of other factors.⠀ ⠀ This leads to people automatically placing fat people in the "unhealthy" category. The fake accountability people have for fat folks disappears when it comes to an unhealthy person who is in a smaller body.⠀ I have gotten in to arguments about health with thin people who eat pizza for most meals, while shaming a fat person calling them unhealthy. ⠀ What I find most interesting about this that people believe that health standards are different for skinny and fat people. ⠀ ⠀ Have you heard or said phrases like this?⠀ "Why are you working out, you're already small"⠀ ⠀ "You can afford to eat that burger, I can't"⠀ ⠀ "You can eat whatever you want! You're so skinny!"⠀ ⠀ And yes, all of these stems from fatphobic beliefs. The hypocrisy of a mostly sedentary individual telling someone who's fat to exercise and eat salad is actually laughable. The worse part is that these attitudes lead many people to a road of constant dieting and frustration for gaining weight back. Read the slides for a breakdown of how skinny doesn't automatically mean healthy, and conversely, fat doesn't always mean unhealthy. #fatphobia #healthyateverysize #fatpositive #fastpositivity

A post shared by Tiffany Ima | Body Confidence (@tiffanyima) on Jul 6, 2020 at 5:22am PDT

"You can adopt health-promoting behaviors without changing your body weight," Carpenter said.

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"You can also change your body weight with behaviors that are not necessarily healthy. Assuming someone's health status based on how they look is not reliable."

People in larger bodies can be healthier and fitter

Neither Madigan nor Carpenter is as lean as they have been in the past, but they're much healthier and both do still look fit.

But just as there are plenty of slim people who are unfit and weak — and will be the first to admit it — lots of people in larger bodies run marathons and break strength world records.

Take journalist Bryony Gordon and plus-size model Jada Sezer, for example, who ran the London marathon in their underwear to prove that you don't need to be slim to build incredible stamina.

And when it comes to strength, having more flesh on your bones is, if anything, a help not a hindrance. This is why so many champion weightlifters aren't lean like bodybuilders and bikini competitors — that extra body mass helps with their strength.

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In fact, officials in Canada recently called for "obesity" to be defined by health, rather than simply weight in relation to height, as Insider's Anna Medaris Miller reported.

A post shared by Chrissy King | Fitness Coach (@iamchrissyking)

"Fitness is not a size or a shape or a look," fitness coach Chrissy King recently wrote on Instagram.

"Quite frankly, I'm tired of the fitness industry's obsession with fat loss. Movement is about so much more than that and chasing leanness doesn't have to be the thing for you or anyone. It doesn't have to be *the* goal. It doesn't have to be *the* reason you exercise.

"No one is inherently better for being in a body with less body fat."

It's wrong to make assumptions about someone's health based on their appearance

While it's possible to have a lean body and be perfectly healthy, both mentally and physically, it's wrong to make the assumption, Madigan says.

Both bodies here ate lucky charms BUT one felt guilty about it and the other doesn’t ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ FOOD FREEDOM ⁣⁣ ⁣ Removing the control that food has over you & the freedom to enjoy whatever food you want without the feeling of guilt. ⁣ Feeling in control of the food you eat will come from the inclusion of ALL foods in your diet, no restrictions, no ‘I can’t eat sugar’ ... ⁣⁣ I want to talk about Carbohydrate Metabolism since yesterday I got told I ‘don’t have the right info about how food affects the body’ I have a degree in Exercise Science & I am currently studying my Nutritionist Qualification with @martinnutrition ⁣⁣ What people ‘think’ happens You eat carbs then your insulin spikes & this shuts off your ‘fat burning mode’ ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ What actually happens You eat carbs, which increases plasma (blood) Glucose & because excess amount of blood glucose are toxic to the body our body removes this by increasing plasma Insulin. This causes plasma Free Fatty Acids to be pushed into the muscles & to cells along with glucose to be pushed into cells to be stored as glycogen. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ We see a reduction in fat metabolism BUT the reason for this is because we see an increase in Carbohydrate metabolism. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Because carbohydrates are our primary fuel source as human beings, fat metabolism is acutely reduced so we can use the readily available carbs for energy. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Then gradually we see glycogen utilisation starting to increase to maintain blood glucose levels & thus fat metabolism (fat burning) slowly starts to rise again allowing us to go back to homeostasis (steady state of living). ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Losing body fat is down to total calorie intake & creating a Calorie Deficit this means eating fewer Calories than our bodies burn across a day or weekly average. ⁣⁣ Hence why I could still eat lucky charms when I was lean & still lose body fat BUT I felt guilty EVERY SINGLE TIME I ATE THEM so today’s message is to remove guilt & find your freedom in food ⁣CARBS ARE NOT BAD ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ SUGAR IS NOT BAD ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ YOU CAN STILL LOSE FAT BY EATING CARBS IF THAT IS YOUR GOAL⁣ ⁣ REMOVE THAT GUILT ⁣ ⁣⁣ CARBS ARE DELIGHTFUL⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ AND SO ARE LUCKY CHARMS

A post shared by Hayley Madigan (@hayleymadiganfitness) on Jun 22, 2020 at 6:59am PDT

"It's easy to look at someone lean with a six-pack and think they are the pinnacle of health when sometimes they really aren't and could be experiencing disordered eating like I did," she said.

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"The same works for when people judge bigger people for not 'looking healthy' when actually those individuals could have better cardiovascular fitness and better mental health than the leaner individuals.

"We are brought up in a society that judges people based on what they look like and having body fat is deemed unhealthy when actually it's necessary for survival and optimal health especially in females."

Read more:

I've always worked out, but nobody took me seriously until I lost weight. Here's why being lean doesn't always mean being fit.

Meet Hayley Madigan, the body positive fitness influencer showing that even the fittest, strongest bodies have cellulite too

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5 crucial exercise lessons I learned when I cut my body fat nearly in half in 6 months without losing my muscle

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