When I walk into the weight room at the Center of Clayton after school I am surrounded by mirrors. I see people entranced, turning in front of them, finding their best angles, looking desperately at themselves as they pace back and forth, scouring every surface of their body with darting eyes.

These mirrors represent a pernicious threat. As long as adolescents are exercising and getting their heart rate up after school, it is widely assumed that they are benefitting themselves; however, in these closed rooms surrounded by mirrors, so many adolescents seem to be picking their very own body apart. These mirrors warn us of the dangerous evolution in the exercise and fitness culture.

As high school students, and more importantly as human beings, we need methods of stress and energy release, especially when so much of the population spends most of the day sitting indoors.

Exercise offers everyone the opportunity for emotional cleansing, catharsis, thought, and obvious health benefits, and people across the nation clamber for the opportunity to experience endorphin-induced euphoria.

But the mantra of self-empowerment that has been the essence of exercise and personal fitness is becoming more and more elusive within the mirrored walls of fitness centers across the nation.

There are men and women now being diagnosed with exercise disorders, defined by the University of California, Davis Association for Body Image Disordered Eating as “people who are controlling their bodies, altering their moods, and defining themselves through their over involvement in exercise.”

In our society, we are increasingly seeking exercise, less for the pursuit of fitness or pleasure and more for the means to a thinner body or a sense of control and accomplishment. We are living in a generation of selfies, Instagram, and Snapchat, all of which reduce who we are to what lies on the surface, and while it may seem harmless at first, it can make facing what is in the mirror so much more difficult.

However, what our staff has found in the cover story is a redeeming, yet deceivingly simple idea: find a method of exercise that makes you healthy, but more importantly find a fun method of exercise that you love, even if it’s not offered in a state-of-the-art, mirrored fitness room. Revel in the opportunity to escape from the stresses of the average day, to push your own mental boundaries, and to sing the body electric.