Online Community Trends
The online community trend has continuously been growing with the emergence of social media and finding like-minded people around the world. With the pandemic this has become even more of a movement in order to keep people engaged in today’s world. Platforms like Facebook have group pages with shared posts for like-people to share information with each other already but can be open or very limited to who is accepted into those groups. Challenges arise to censor content and keep pages for specific topics due to different types of people with different interests. Communities specific for women in agriculture are hard to come by although almost 40% of agriculturalists are women.
Through activity on social media, especially agricultural pages and people, many agriculture or ag-fitness influencers came to light on suggested pages and friends media pages. One of those pages being Laurel Carlson of Carbs_cattle_caballos.
Laurel Carlson: Carbs_cattle_caballos
Laurel shares about her personal life and her fitness journey through her Instagram page. She loves ranching and her health and fitness which she has now turned into her personal business. The online community she has created is called Free Range Fitness which brings together women in agriculture and allows them to build off of each other and lean on each other for not only fitness but personal challenges also. This group is women from all over different parts of the country, many of which struggle with winter storms especially in the past few weeks. For them, having an online community to lean on is super important to get away from family and home struggles.
Free Range Fitness
Laurel shares that she started this group to help her stay more accountable in her fitness endeavors and to help other women with a similar lifestyle as hers with their health and fitness. Laurel also shared that her favorite part about Free Range Fitness is the community behind it. She knows that if she is struggling or succeeding with her fitness she is able to share it to get encouragement from other women or help other women in the group reach their goals. The biggest challenge she has faced so far with Free Range Fitness, was starting it. Questions of “Who would join me?” or “Why would they join me?” clouded her visions of her fitness community. After overcoming those personal challenges, she was able to build a community and keep growing it with time. Each and every woman who joins Free Range Fitness has been able to comfortably share with the group and learn more about themselves for the better.
Personally, I have been a part of her group for about a month or so and have gotten so many welcoming messages. I have learned so much about myself and my health and fitness through this journey in the past few weeks than I would ever have on my own. By being a part of Free Range Fitness, I have improved not only my health but also my mindset and approach to fitness as a whole. This group has brought light to the mindset of “this only happens to me” to realize I am not alone and not the only one who faces challenges of staying healthy and keeping up with activities in agriculture; be those activities with a ranch or backyard livestock.
Megan, another woman in the Free Range Fitness group, says she loves to have a group to hold her accountable to take care of herself. She is thankful she can ask questions and keep track of progress with everyone doing similar workout programs.
Andrea Severtson: thatfitagvocate
Another ag-fitness influencer is Andrea Severtson of thatfitagvocate. Andrea shares very similar content with Laurel. Andrea shares her personal struggles through photos on Instagram with her followers who relate to her struggles and uses encouragement from her to get where they want to be in their lives whether that be in fitness or agricultural related job types. She shares challenges she has faced to create her own brand on social media and the backlash she has faced with being a woman in agriculture. Andrea has used social media to her advantage to help other women in agriculture improve their health goals and be an important agvocate for farmers and ranchers alike. Andrea and her husband also own a cattle ranch where she has used her knowledge about agriculture to create educational videos about backlash in the industry and to prove them wrong.
Final Thoughts
With online communities it becomes challenging to find exactly where you fit in. Although there are many other online fitness communities, many of which specifically tailor to agriculture or other industries, other pages for fitness influencers come to light. Many of these pages are very general and do not allow people to share similar interests or lifestyles. With Free Range Fitness with Laurel Carlson and Andrea Severtson, women who work in agriculture or are just involved in agricultural activities are able to build communities where they fit in and can find lifelong friendships to learn more about themselves and gain insights into how they can improve their daily lives. I am able to attest to this community experience with my own life. I have greatly improved taking care of myself and how I feel on a daily basis.
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