Surely you have heard of somatotypes – that is, the supposed 3 body types. They are: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. Sadly, this myth has absolutely no grounding in science or reality.

There is no such thing as a “body type”. There are not “plum shapes”, “round shapes”, “slender shapes”, “hourglass shapes” etc. If you look like that it is not because of your genetics, it is because of your own choices that you have made. There is no such thing as a somatotype.

Check out these 3 fake bodytypes and their fake descriptions.

This is totally fake and not grounded in any science whatsoever.

An American psychologist named William Sheldon in the 1940s decided to look at a ton of photos. By his own observance, he noticed a pattern. Some people were tall and skinny, some were overweight, and some were somewhere in the middle. So he sorted all the photos into piles of similarity. Without any scientific research whatsoever, just his observance of some pictures of people, he decided to call these three piles “body types”.

Unfortunately, this psychologist’s failure to do any research whatsoever has fooled millions of people for nearly a century. The reality is that taller people have weight more distributed, shorter people have weight less distributed, and there are people in between. However, in reality, tall, short, and medium height people all have the exact same body type and physiology. Tall people might have larger or smaller bone structures. Same with short people and average height people.

All gain weight at the same speed and lose it at the same speed. All have variations in their metabolism. Some have faster metabolisms and others have slower metabolisms. But their physiology is no different, they respond to nutrition and exercise the exact same way.

What about “hard-gainers”? A complete myth. Hard gainers may simply have a fast metabolism, but most often simply do not eat enough food to build muscle. They may be extremely active. Often they will seem “hyper”; all this additional movement burns a massive amount of calories. Overweight people simply eat too much food, or eat the wrong type of food, and usually also live a sedentary lifestyle.

There is a clear and natural explanation for every type of weight challenge, but it has nothing to do with “body types”. If any person in the world does the same fixed set of proven exercises and nutrition habits, every one of them will gain the same results in the same manner.

In reality, the people with a “mesomorph” bodytype is simply someone who has adopted better eating habits over their lifetime and better exercise habits. Perhaps they had good parents who didn’t let them eat candy and cake all day. Or, perhaps they got sick of being sick and overweight, or tired of being underweight and picked on, so they started a good exercise routine. But everyone has the equal capacity for a normal and positive body shape.

If you don’t believe that you are lying to yourself so you don’t feel bad about your bad exercise and nutrition choices. No one wants to be responsible for anything negative that has happened to them, but everyone is responsible, and can only change when they accept responsibility for their own behavior.

You want to look like this? It just takes exercise and self-discipline. Hold yourself accountable.

Sure, some will gain or lose more slowly or more quickly – but this has nothing to do with a “body type”. All it has to do with is the variations of humans, in that every single human is different and not exactly alike. We are not clones. But we are all very similar, and none can be grouped into any “body types” except those with poor self-discipline and those with good self-discipline.

There is absolutely no such thing as the 3 “body-types”. If you are short and overweight, it is related to your eating and exercise habits. Only your height is genetic – and sometimes that is also related more to eating habits during childhood than genetics. If you are tall and lanky, again, it is lack of exercise and/or poor eating habits. It is harder for a tall person to put on more weight, but there are plenty of tall people who are huge.

You cannot group yourself into some generic “body type”. All that does is defeat your self-will if you think because you are fat or because you are skinny or because you don’t look like the model on the billboard that you have some “body-type”. It is a total myth and a lie. You can look like the billboard model in as little as 1 year or less, if you only have the self-discipline. And you definitely don’t need to adapt it to any “body type”.

If you are overweight you need to eat better or less food, and some more (or more effective methods of) exercise could also help. If you are underweight you need to eat more and better food and/or exercise more or more effectively. Women gain fat in certain areas and men gain fat in other areas. Different races have different general physiologies. And every human is slightly different, but all work in the same way.

So stop believing the somatotype myth. You don’t have any body type but the type of body which you, by your own choices, have built with your own self-discipline or lack thereof. You are not a victim of your physiology. You are only a victim of your own choices, and you always have control over your choices – although it certainly gets easier when you develop better habits over time.

What’s the health hack? Hold yourself accountable and take responsibility for your own eating and exercise habits. Stop playing the victim and take control of your own life. You’ll be surprised how fast everything changes when you take full responsibility for your own actions and don’t blame “genetics”, “body types”, or anything else other than your own choices.