The Women’s Sports Boom Is Reminding Us What Strong, Healthy Bodies Look Like

This proliferation of strong, capable women in media is much overdue. You can't aspire to what you can't see, and for so many years young women and girls were predominantly exposed to thin bodies, posed to be sexy and alluring.

Research published in Sex Roles examined how different types of athlete images affect viewers. Viewing sexualized images of athletes increased self-objectification (the tendency to view your body as an object to be evaluated by others) in both male and female college students.

But viewing images of athletes mid-action, competing, demonstrating strength and skill, had the opposite effect. It increased what researchers call "physicality self-descriptors." In other words, people started describing themselves in terms of what their bodies could do, not just how they looked.

A 2024 study found that women who internalized the "athletic ideal" body type, which valued strength, capability, and physical performance, had more positive body images and lower negative, self-conscious emotions compared to those who internalized the "thin ideal" or even the "fit ideal" body types.

Seeing strong, capable bodies reminds women to appreciate what their body can do, and encourages them to strength train and exercise so their bodies can do even more. Reframing body image to be about what your body can accomplish, versus what it looks like, appears to be genuinely psychologically protective.

This isn't about replacing one narrow body ideal with another. It's about expanding what "aspirational" looks like. When millions of women and girls watch female athletes sprinting, jumping, tackling, scoring each week, they're absorbing a different message about what a female body is for.

The women's sports boom means more visibility for bodies that are powerful, capable, and unapologetically strong.

The ripple effects beyond the field

The impact extends beyond individual body image. Women's sports fans tend to be younger, more digitally native, and more family-oriented than traditional sports audiences. In Australia, 65% of the population now considers themselves fans of women's sports.

And female athletes aren't the only women being uplifted in this shift. The presence of a women's team in a community increases earnings by 20-30% for local women working in the spectator sports industry, according to the Deloitte report. Parents are almost 40% more likely to work in spectator sports if there is a women's sports team in their market.

Women's sports aren't just changing how we see female bodies. They're changing who gets to participate in, and profit from, the sports industry itself.

The takeaway

The $3 billion women's sports boom is doing something wellness culture never could: normalizing female strength, power, and physical capability as aspirational.

For women who spent years absorbing the message that smaller is better, watching elite female athletes compete is corrective. It's a reminder that your body isn't just something to be looked at. It's something that can perform, achieve, and take up space.

How we see athletes represented shapes how we see ourselves. And right now, the representation is finally catching up to what women's bodies have always been capable of.