While "healthy" is a term that gets thrown into conversations regularly, its flippant versatility may be confusing. If you search Instagram, you may locate insight into what society collectively considers the healthy ideal: health fashions behind filters, bodybuilders and their supplements, detoxing and fad food plan claim, the virtues of “clean-eating,” and an extreme amount of juice. You get the picture—you’ve probably visible the pictures, too.  Buy our best seller here.

Researchers pinpoint a few main problems with this near-constant imagery. First, media (particularly social media) plays a huge role in shaping what behaviors human beings consider important to reach a certain goal. But since those behaviors prioritize physical appearance, they’re usually linked with negative psychological effects and poorer physical fitness outcomes.

It comes down to this paradox: studies routinely display that someone's body form isn't always a good indicator of how healthy they actually are. In a world in which poor body image is fairly common, it is honest to question whether or not we can be missing the mark on what it means to be healthy.

What Makes up a “Healthy Life”

Those fitness influencers aren’t exactly wrong—things like healthy foods, day-by-day movement, and lifestyle factors such as not smoking are extremely important to living a healthy life. But how many greens you eat isn't the only thing you need to paint a complete photograph of wellness.

A healthy lifestyle is more multi-faceted than what you notice on social media, and it calls for an awesome balance to maintain. New studies posted in the British Medical Journal break it down like this: you can’t outrun a poor diet at the gym, and all of the juice cleanings in the world won’t make up for a sedentary lifestyle.

You mustn’t make sweeping changes to those parts of your lifestyle all at once. In fact, studies show that making small adjustments, bit by bit, sets you up for extra sustainable long-time-period habits.