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The latest exercise gear and gadgets regularly appear atop holiday shopping guides, but that doesn’t mean a new pair of running shoes or a gym membership is a foolproof gift for your loved one.
While physical activity offers mental and physical health benefits for most people, working out has become so closely associated with weight loss that an exercise gift can come across as thinly veiled body-shaming.
“Never buy someone an unsolicited fitness or nutrition-related present. These gifts always come with a side of diet culture, whether we realize it or not,” according to Leslie Schilling, a Las Vegas-based registered dietitian who specializes in sports nutrition and disordered eating recovery.
Even when given with love and the best intentions, these kinds of presents can have undertones of “‘you need to change in some way,’ which usually lands pretty harmfully for the recipient of the gift,” Schilling added.
