Is Cosplay An Effective Motivation For Diet and Exercise?
Many of our most beloved characters from Anime and Video Games are slender, tall, totally cut, and (in female cases) busty. Fictional characters are built around an almost totally unrealistic standard of beauty; their hair, skin, and nails glow in dungeon lamp-light, and their shapely silhouettes eclipse the most fantastic of landscapes.
Most cosplayers will never look as perfect as the characters that they emulate, so is it healthy to try? Can cosplay be an effective motivating factor for diet and exercise?
Many believe it can be. As long as cosplayers have realistic expectations as to what their bodies are capable of, getting more exercise and eating healthier can not be a bad thing.
An Anonymous Cosplayer and Six Flags Model Weighs in:
“I started cosplaying as an employee at Six Flags about 5 years ago. You had to wear muscle suits if you didn’t have the mass. I took pride in not needing it in certain areas and used that as motivation. Most superheroes are drawn with outrageous muscles. I have always been into exercising, but portraying a superhero definitely motivates you to want to work out more. For heroes like Superman and Green Lantern I would hit the gym harder for about a month or more prior to bulk up. For agile characters like Robin and Nightcrawler, I would really stretch everyday to have more flexibility to hit and hold certain poses. I still workout and stretch regularly to maintain the superhero image for future cosplays”
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- Marvel Superhero: Wolverine and his mutant muscles.
Some features cannot be drastically changed without surgery: features such as wrinkles, sagging skin, or breasts. Some features cannot be changed even with the help of modern cosmetic medicine, like height and build. (It is my personal belief that no one should have surgery for a cosplay. Ever.) But there are many things about the body that can be improved by exercise. Weight is an obvious one, but frequent exercise and stretching can also improve muscle tone, balance, body awareness, and posture. Better balance, body awareness and posture are going to help you take a better photo, whether you look like your character or not.
Another Cosplayer called Spencer says,
“I like to make the character as real as possible for the public seeing it. So I think that motivates me to stay in shape. I also like to show that not all comic fans are just couch potatoes and hopefully I can help motivate some people out there that just need a push. “
Many cosplayers have started “health and fitness” topics on cosplay forums to help track their progress, find support, and encourage others to get in shape for cosplay. Adding a social aspect to your workout is a great way to stay motivated. You can share techniques and recipes, or arrange trips to the gym and runs with other cosplayers looking to get in shape in your area. Exercising with a friend provides great support and motivation, and it makes the time go by faster (Braunstein, J, 2002, p. 55).
Some cosplayers print out a picture of their character and pin it on their wall. Maybe over their computer or next to their sewing machine. This is a constant reminder of their fitness goals and their deadline: convention day. Having this picture looming over them is an extra little kick in the butt to get themselves off of the couch or out of the cookie jar. However other cosplayers find this trick to produce more anxiety than it does results. Exercise should be enjoyable, otherwise you are never going to keep at it.
An anonymous female cosplayer says that she doesn’t bother exercising for cosplay because “Anime in general tends to [include] girls with size 00 bodies and 12 year old faces…so to try and be the impossible I feel is too fake and tedious.”
Seong Mina from Soul Caliber IV with washboard abs and gravity defying under-boob But if you want to give exercise a go, and are just getting started, here is a list of tips to help the average person maintain a healthy fitness level: walk 10,000 steps each day, drink 8 glasses of water, get enough sleep, get 30 minutes of cardio every day, and stretch before and after exercising. This is a basic starting point; you should add resistance training and diet specific to your goals and body type.Making the decision to be more active and eat healthier is really about making a lifestyle change; it is about making the choice to live healthier long term, and not just until after the convention. But if cosplay can be a catalyst to kick-start your workout, then by all means, set that goal for yourself. Just remember to be realistic about the amount of time and effort that is required to achieve and maintain a fantasy body. Also, be realistic about where you are starting from. If you have an extra 35 lbs to loose, it may take a little longer for you to obtain a certain physic than it would a person starting out in a lower weight class, or at a younger age.
The good news is that even if visible changes are slow-in-coming, exercise does have an immediate, noticeable, positive effect on the body. Only one day of cardio helps you sleep better and reduces acute stress. A week of cardio will improve your self esteem and reduce insomnia, and three weeks of cardio training will actually begin to rebuild muscle tissue and blood vessels to deliver more oxygen to the muscles more efficiently. Yoga has been shown to decrease feelings of guilt and shame, and increases feelings of vitality and strength after only a week of practice (Nagarathna, Nagendra, & Narasimhan, 2011, p. 13). Ten days of yoga improves hand-eye coordination and balance (Kauts et al., 2009, p. 39), and only three months practicing yoga can reduce headaches, insomnia and nervousness as well as increase attention and concentration (Kauts et al., 2009, p. 39).
Exercise, whether it be for cosplay or not, should really be a part of everyone’s life. We all want to see happy and healthy cosplayers out there on the convention floor. However it is very important to remember that your favorite fictional characters also have fictional bodies. Adjust your fitness goals accordingly.
And thanks for reading!
Sources:
Braunstein, J. (2002, June). Getting The Stress Monkey Off Your Back: The Fitness Forum. Diabetes Forecast. 55.6, 55.
Kauts, A. & Sharma, N. (2009). Effect of Yoga on Academic Performance in Relation to Stress. International Journal of Yoga. 2.1, 39.
Nagarathna, R., Nagendra, H., & Narasimhan, L. (2011) Effect of Integrated Yogic Practices on Positive and Negative Emotions in Healthy Adults. Internation Journal of Yoga. 4.1, 13.
so true!!! I did ab exercises like my life depended on it before my Mystique cosplay! Seeing a previous cosplay I had done with my middrift showing was the real motivator, pictures don’t lie!
So true! I agree entirely (not about my midriff showing, but about hitting the gym to get in better shape to dress up in costume and try to pull it off). Cosplay can definitely be a motivator for staying or getting in shape!