Fitness influencer Jaxon Tippet was on vacation this month when he died unexpectedly from an apparent heart attack only a few days after his 30th birthday. 

Tippet previously battled with steroid use. In 2017, he was fined $4,000 by the Australian Southport Magistrates Court after being caught with 250 steroid tablets, vials of testosterone, and a needle and syringe hidden in his underwear. 

On a 2022 episode of the Good Humans podcast, Tippet recalled having no symptoms in his first year of taking steroids. But as time moved on, he experienced a gradual and insidious shift.

“I could feel my health deteriorating,” he said. “I was very tired. I was yellow in the face, my urine was almost orange… I couldn’t get an erection.” 

Since getting clean, Tippet had dedicated his Instagram and TikTok accounts — which, combined, have nearly 250,000 followers — to encouraging aspirational bodybuilders to take care of their mental health and be positive.

But his death serves as a grim reminder that the unrealistic physiques of fitness influencers are often achieved using perilous techniques — like extreme diets and the use of steroids and growth hormones — that are usually much more dangerous than “healthy.”

Worse yet, these personalities are explosively popular among young people, leading to the risk that they’ll imitate their idols and engage in similar dangerous behavior.

Case in point, a striking number of fitness influencers die suddenly and way too young. Just in the past year, for example, bodybuilder Illia Yefimchyk died at 36 after years of steroids use and spending his days consuming 16,500 calories in a bid to be the “most monstrous bodybuilder” — along with his fellow bodybuilders Antonio Souza and Neil Currey.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, in 2023, raw food influencer Zhanna Samsonova died at 39 after primarily eating jackfruit and durian for years. 

In other words, it’s important to remember that lustrous influencer content — no matter if it’s the most impressive biceps or the smoothest skin — is never a true indicator of health.

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