Food And Lycra Co-Founders On Inclusive Fitness: ‘Regardless Of Shape, Size And Colour, Just Move’

“Our mission is to help young women, in particular, to realise their potential through movement and sport – regardless of shape, size and colour, just move. Girls who come along say, ‘Wow, I’ve never done anything like that before. I feel great after this.’ It’s not the Instagram fitness influencer who is in their sports bra and leggings taking pictures, it’s not about that. They’re just there to have fun and happy to have moved their bodies… Their excitement and joy is contagious.

“Our community is not really catered to in the fitness industry at the moment. One, we try and make it accessible from a price point of view. A lot of fitness events are really expensive. Two, they’re not very inclusive in terms of people who are different shapes and sizes, colours, religions. In terms of the line-up we had in February for our fitness festival, it was people of all different colours, sizes and religions. That in itself made our audience feel, ‘I belong here. There’s a space for me here.’ If you don’t have that, people think, ‘this isn’t for me.’ You can’t be what you can’t see.

“We’re doing more events and keep building on our community. When we started so many years ago we were just online. We had people who were engaging with our content, but we never did anything physically to make a difference. It’s in the last year we realised that we need to be on the ground talking to people, and meeting people, and doing what we say we want to do. The only way to do that is through events.

“We do at least one event a month; whether that’s working with brands who are behind our message, doing a big fitness festival, hosting educational workshops or running fun events. There’s usually a live DJ and [we’re] kind of tricking young girls and boys into doing a workout – it feels like you’re dancing, but you’re actually doing athletic movement to good music. We always try and include food to deal with the pressures of diet culture… We believe people should just workout and eat healthily. Have more balance.”