Women Deserve Better

Why women hear so much about how their bodies should look, and so little about how they work

11-minute read

Why I’m Writing This

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have all the answers here. I’m a coach who has spent nearly twenty years helping people get healthier, and I’m a husband, son, brother, and uncle to some pretty amazing women. Over the years, I’ve noticed something that bothers me.

I’ve heard “I don’t want to get bulky, I just want to get toned” more times than I can count. I’ve also worked with women who were still leaking when they sneezed or laughed 10, 12, even 15 years after giving birth, or who had started leaking as they got older, and who had simply accepted it as part of being a mom or part of aging. Put those two things side by side and a pattern shows up. Women are told an enormous amount about how their bodies should look and surprisingly little about how those bodies actually work.

And think about where most of that information comes from. Get toned. Burn more. Bounce back after the baby. Try this serum, this cleanse, this injection, this class. Almost everything women hear about looking good, feeling good, and staying young comes attached to something for sale. The more I’ve paid attention, the more I’ve come to believe that a lot of what women have been taught about their health is really just marketing.

Even medicine has had a blind spot. Until 1993, FDA guidance kept most women of childbearing age out of early drug trials, so a lot of medications were tested mostly on men and then prescribed to everyone. Ambien is a good example. Women clear it more slowly than men do, and it took two decades after the drug was approved for the FDA to cut the recommended starting dose for women in half. This month, I’ve been writing about where I see these gaps show up. This article pulls those ideas together.

Stronger, Not Smaller

The fitness industry figured out a long time ago that “smaller” sells. Tone, sculpt, lengthen, burn. Somewhere along the way, skinny became shorthand for healthy. It isn’t. When a woman isn’t eating enough, she’s usually not getting enough protein, calcium, or vitamin D either, and over time that can take a real toll on her hormones and her bones. Low body weight is one of the classic risk factors for osteoporosis. You can look incredibly fit and still be fragile.

What women need is muscle. Muscle helps manage blood sugar, protects your joints, and keeps you independent as you get older. And women seem to get even more out of strength training than men do. A large study that tracked more than 400,000 American adults for up to two decades found that women who strength trained regularly were 19 percent less likely to die early than women who didn’t, and 30 percent less likely to die from heart disease. For men, the drop in early death was only 11 percent. Bone responds the same way. For years, women with low bone density were told to stay away from heavy weights. Then researchers had postmenopausal women with low bone mass deadlift and squat heavy twice a week, and their bone density went up, not down.

Strength training is good for your brain, too. Dozens of studies have found that lifting weights helps with depression. One theory is that when your muscles work, they release chemicals called myokines, and some of those seem to protect the brain from stress. Most people think of lifting as something for your body, but it appears to be one of the best things you can do for your mental health.

So when a woman tells me she doesn’t want to get bulky, I get it. She’s been told that her whole life. But lifting weights doesn’t make women bulky. That kind of size comes from years, usually decades, of hard training while eating more calories than you burn. Muscle is something I want women to cherish, not fear. The goal isn’t to get smaller. It’s to get stronger and stay capable for the rest of your life.

Women Aren’t Just Smaller Men

The habit of studying men and assuming the results apply to women didn’t stop with drug trials. Only about 6 percent of sports and exercise science studies published between 2014 and 2020 looked at women alone. A lot of what women hear about training, eating, and supplements was worked out mostly on men, and now that researchers are finally studying women directly, it turns out some of that advice fits and some of it doesn’t.

Creatine is a good example of how marketing shaped who uses what. I’ve recommended it for over twenty years, and it’s always sat on the men’s shelf, next to the giant tubs of protein with a bodybuilder on the label. But women may actually have more to gain. They naturally make less creatine than men and usually get less from food, mostly because they tend to eat less meat. Along with helping build strength and muscle, creatine is showing real promise for the brain and mood. In one trial, women with depression who added creatine to their antidepressant improved faster than women taking the antidepressant alone. The research on pregnancy and perimenopause is still early, so that’s a conversation to have with a doctor. But for most women, creatine is one of the cheapest, safest, most studied supplements out there, and no, it won’t make you bulky.

Intermittent fasting went the other direction. It got marketed hard as a fat loss shortcut, and now some people swear by it while others say it destroys women’s hormones. Neither side has as much evidence as they think. What concerns me more is how easy it is for women to undereat without realizing it. Skip breakfast, do a hard class, eat a salad for lunch, and by dinner you’ve barely had any protein. That’s not really a fasting plan. It’s underfueling, and women’s bodies are especially sensitive to it. When there isn’t enough fuel coming in, the body can start shutting down things it considers optional, like the menstrual cycle, and bone pays the price. If you like intermittent fasting, make sure you’re still eating enough overall, especially protein, and pay attention if your cycle, sleep, or energy starts to change.

After the Baby Arrives

Getting certified in pre- and postnatal fitness early in my career changed the way I think about women’s healthcare. Pregnancy gets so much attention, with constant appointments, scans, and a long list of things to avoid. Then the baby comes, and for a lot of women, the support mostly ends after one checkup around six weeks. The message new moms hear most after that is about “bouncing back,” which really means getting their old body back as fast as possible. Very few people talk to them about rebuilding what’s underneath.

Leaking after childbirth is incredibly common. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of new moms deal with it in the first year. But common doesn’t mean you have to live with it. Pelvic floor training can work really well, even years later.

A pelvic floor problem also isn’t always about weakness. Sometimes the muscles are too tight. A tight pelvic floor can cause leaking and urgency just like a weak one, along with pelvic pain and painful sex, and stress, shallow breathing, and constantly bracing your core can all contribute. That’s why I’m wary of the blanket advice to just do Kegels. If a muscle is already clenched, squeezing it harder won’t help. It needs to learn to relax first.

This is where a pelvic floor physical therapist is worth their weight in gold. They can tell you whether you need to strengthen, relax, or both. I tell my clients that once you’ve had a baby, you’re forever postpartum. Whether you had a baby six months ago, fifteen years ago, or you’re simply noticing changes as you get older, it’s worth getting checked out.

Is It Really Just Bad Luck?

Whenever breast, uterine, or thyroid cancer comes up, I hear some version of the same thing: it’s genetics, or it’s just bad luck. Sometimes that’s true. But only about 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are hereditary. And women are being diagnosed younger. Women under 50 now get cancer at a rate 82 percent higher than men their age, up from 51 percent two decades ago. Breast cancer in women under 50 has been climbing about 1.4 percent a year, and deaths from uterine cancer are rising. Better treatment has brought overall cancer deaths down, which is great news. But researchers still don’t fully understand why more younger women are being diagnosed.

I keep coming back to how many products women put on their bodies every day. Think about a normal morning. You shower with scented body wash, shampoo, and conditioner, then rub lotion, deodorant, skincare, and makeup into warm, damp skin, which can absorb some chemicals more easily. You pull on synthetic leggings and sweat in them for an hour, then come home to a candle burning and a plug-in in the hallway. Some ingredients in these products, especially certain phthalates and parabens, can interfere with hormones, and phthalates often hide inside the word “fragrance,” so you won’t see them on the label. Many of these products go on the same parts of the body, every single day, for decades.

Does any of that contribute to the rise in cancer we’re seeing? I don’t know, and I’m not going to pretend I do. Deodorant, for example, hasn’t been shown to cause breast cancer. But the honest answer is that nobody really knows, because nobody is really checking. Regulators look at one ingredient at a time, not the dozens we layer together. You can’t ethically run a study where women rub chemicals on their skin for thirty years and wait to see who gets sick. And there isn’t much money in funding research on products that have no patent and no cure to sell. So the official answer stays “there’s no evidence,” and no evidence of harm quietly gets treated as evidence of safety. In the meantime, we’re all part of an experiment nobody designed. Europe takes a more cautious approach, banning or restricting thousands of substances from cosmetics. The U.S. has banned or restricted a few dozen, cosmetics don’t need FDA approval before they’re sold, and a proposed ban on formaldehyde in hair straighteners, which have been linked to a higher risk of uterine cancer, has been delayed again and again.

When something is that hard to study and caution costs almost nothing, I’d rather lean toward caution. Using fewer products is free. And your body responds quickly when you cut back. In one study, teenage girls who switched to products without phthalates and parabens for just three days had noticeably lower levels of those chemicals in their bodies.

What we do know is that some of the best protection against cancer isn’t sold in a store. About 30 percent of breast cancers are tied to things women can change, like being inactive, carrying excess weight, and drinking alcohol. In a study of 1.44 million people, being more active was linked to a lower risk of 13 different cancers, including breast cancer, and strength training on its own has been linked to a lower risk of dying from cancer. If I could get every woman I care about to do one thing for her long-term health, it would be to start lifting.

Use It or Lose It, Even in Your Face

No industry sells youth harder than the beauty industry, and right now its best seller is Botox. Close to 10 million Botox-style injections are done in this country every year, making them the most popular cosmetic procedure there is. Botox is made from botulinum toxin, one of the most powerful toxins in existence, and it works by stopping a muscle from contracting. It’s a genuinely useful treatment for things like chronic migraines. But it’s also become routine maintenance, and now women in their twenties are getting it to “prevent” wrinkles.

I’m not judging anyone who gets it. But I spend my days telling people that muscle follows the rule of use it or lose it, and the face is no exception. Repeated injections can shrink the muscles being treated. In the jaw, where people get Botox to slim the face, studies have even found some bone loss, because bone responds to the muscles pulling on it. Nearby muscles can start working harder to make up the difference, creating new lines in new places, and some people build up antibodies over time that make it stop working as well. A lot of the muscle loss seems to come back if you stop. The catch is that most people don’t stop, and that’s exactly how the business works.

If the goal is healthier, younger-looking skin, the things that help most don’t cost much. Get some sun, but protect your skin when you’ll be out in it for a long time. Don’t smoke. Sleep. Eat enough protein and vitamin C, which your body needs to make collagen. And lift weights. In one study, women who strength trained twice a week for four months ended up with more elastic, thicker skin. The body holds on to what you use.

Everyone wants to look good and hold on to their youth. That isn’t the problem. The problem is an industry that makes money by convincing women something is wrong with them, then sells them a fix that wears off.

Where I’d Start

Don’t panic, and don’t throw out everything in your bathroom. Start with the thing that has the biggest payoff and can’t be bought: muscle.

This is the biggest battle I have with the women I coach. Many of them love yoga, spin, and Solidcore, and I understand why. Those classes are fun and social, and they’re marketed brilliantly. You leave dripping, shaking, and exhausted, so it feels like it worked. But the way you train should match what you’re trying to accomplish, and that’s where group classes run into trouble as the main part of someone’s routine. A class isn’t built around your goals, your body, your training history, or how well you slept last night. It’s built to be a challenging workout for whoever walks in the door. Harder doesn’t mean better. Training works when you find the right amount of hard, enough to give your body a reason to adapt and not so much that it can’t recover. Stack a near-maximal class on top of a stressful job, poor sleep, and not eating enough, and the body spends its energy recovering instead of building anything. What many women actually need is strength training at a moderate effort, where the weights slowly get heavier over time, with enough food and recovery to adapt.

Then there’s cardio, which has been sold to women as the main fat loss tool for decades. Cardio is great for your heart when you do it with intention, but hours of it, especially long-distance running or back-to-back hard classes, pile more stress onto a body that’s often already stressed and underfed. Exercise of any kind is a fairly weak fat loss tool on its own, because the body tends to make up for what you burn by making you hungrier. Fat loss mostly comes down to how you eat. What strength training adds is muscle, which raises the calories you burn at rest and helps you keep muscle while you’re eating less. So walk every day, and do cardio on purpose for your heart. But build your foundation with two or three strength sessions a week, enough protein to support them, and creatine if it makes sense for you. Then let the classes you love be the extra, not the plan.

Beyond that, take your pelvic floor seriously, and see a specialist if something isn’t right. Use fewer products, choose fragrance-free when you can, and maybe skip the candles and plug-ins. If you read labels, watch for “fragrance” or “parfum,” which can hide phthalates, parabens like methylparaben and propylparaben, and formaldehyde releasers like DMDM hydantoin and quaternium-15. Limit alcohol, move every day, and keep up with your screenings. And when someone is selling you something in the name of your health, ask a few questions. Was this studied in women? What does “clean” or “third-party tested” actually mean on this label? Who benefits if I buy this?

None of this is about telling women what to choose. Wear the leggings. Go to the class. Get the Botox if you want it. But my wife, my mom, my sister, my nieces, and every woman reading this deserve more than products, promises, and quick fixes. Most of what actually keeps a woman healthy, strong, and young for as long as possible can’t be bottled or sold. It’s muscle, real food, sleep, movement, and the people around her. Health was never about how you look in one moment. It’s about building a strong, capable body that supports the life you want to live, for as long as you’re living it.

Women deserve better.

Written by Coach Andy Gallagher

I’m the owner and head coach of Protean Fitness, based in South Florida. I’ve spent nearly 20 years in the health and fitness industry, starting behind the counter at GNC, and today I work primarily with busy people who want real, lasting results without chasing the next big thing. I’m also the author of the Protean Pillars eBook series.

Have a question about something you read? Interested in coaching? Reach out at [proteanfitness.mykajabi.com]. I’d love to hear from you.

1. “Until 1993, FDA guidance kept most women of childbearing age out of early drug trials” → https://www.womenshealth.gov/node/994
2. “A large study that tracked more than 400,000 American adults” → https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/women-may-realize-health-benefits-regular-exercise-more-men
3. “Only about 6 percent of sports and exercise science studies” → https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/publications/invisible-sportswomen-the-sex-data-gap-in-sport-and-exercise-scie/
4. “women may actually have more to gain” (creatine) → https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2025/05/30/expert-review-recaps-effects-of-creatine-in-women/
5. “only about 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are hereditary” → https://www.bcrf.org/blog/is-breast-cancer-hereditary
6. “Women under 50 now get cancer at a rate 82 percent higher than men their age” → https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/16/nx-s1-5262969/cancer-rates-deaths-women
7. “Europe takes a more cautious approach” → https://www.newsweek.com/toxic-ingredients-beauty-products-cosmetics-banned-europe-vs-usa-2124366
8. “In a study of 1.44 million people” → https://irp.nih.gov/accomplishments/increased-physical-activity-is-associated-with-lower-risk-of-13-types-of
9. “it took two decades after the drug was approved for the FDA to cut the recommended starting dose for women in half” → https://fda.gov/media/84992/download