Britons spend huge amounts of money on weight loss methods yet many still struggle to achieve the ‘perfect’ body.

Increasing pressure to conform to the Instagram body ideal is creating a society whose members are unhappy with their own physiques, as verified in studies carried out by the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University.

This research revealed that scrolling through Instagram for just 30 minutes a day can cause women to fixate negatively on their body shape, with participants becoming increasingly unhappy with their own physiques the longer they spent looking at celebrity ‘fitness inspiration’ images.

The heavily filtered ‘gym selfie’ images depicted on social media increase the pressure to hit the gym, however for many Brits the time and effort required to achieve these unrealistic goals is unsustainable.

The 2018 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report shows that one in every seven Brits are gym members, bringing the country’s total membership to almost ten million. However, research by Topcashback reveals that gym memberships are the most wasted monthly subscription, with 50% of members failing to visit the gym.

Money spent on achieving ‘body perfection’ does not stop at gym memberships. According to a survey carried out by MyProtein, the average person spends £124 per month on health and fitness, totaling £96,658 over the average lifetime. This includes fitness clothing, supplements, meal plans and personal training.

A further study revealed that most women attempt three diets each year, totaling an average yearly spend of £485.25. On the premise that this could repeat every year between the ages of 18-70, this figure would reach £25,233 over a life time.

Although a healthy diet and regular exercise can eventually lead to weight loss, many dieters and gym goers are left demoralised – not to mention out of pocket – when they fail to lose stubborn fat.

Disillusioned by the expense and time spent achieving less than ideal results, more and more people are opting for more instant solutions such as non-invasive surgery. The permanent effect that can be achieved in just a few sessions is proving to be more cost effective than unused gym memberships, plus the instant results can also help increase body confidence.

Fiona Comport from body sculpting specialists SculpSure says: “Exercising and maintaining a healthy diet will undoubtedly create a trimmer physique, however areas of stubborn fat – which invariably cling to the stomach, hips and thighs – can be almost impossible to shift through diet and exercise alone. Non-invasive body sculpting allows you to exclusively target those hard-to reach areas for a permanent result”