i don’t look like that…
I’m sort of really pissed off right now and need to rant…
I went to relax for a bit after getting home and wanted to read one of my health magazines that had come in the mail a few days ago. I’m a subscriber to SELF Magazine along with a few other fitness magazines because I feel like it really gives me some insight, good workout tips and healthy cooking ideas for what can sometimes become a very stagnant part of my life.
I workout at least five times a week for no less than 30 minutes each time, but sometimes I want new ideas, approaches, suggestions. So I turn the pages of some of my favorite magazines for just that. But today I noticed something — something that I’m sure has always been there, but really hit me this afternoon. With just the turn of a few pages I was bombarded by pictures of hot bodies, ripped, cut, barely dressed and obviously airbrushed.
I’m not naive. I know that these pictures are meant to inspire me to work harder, run faster, lift heavier and at the very least buy whatever their advertisement is trying to sell. But today (and most other days if I’m being truly honest) they just made me feel bad about myself.
I workout, eat pretty healthy and drink lots of water — why can’t I look like that? Why can’t I have that high, tight butt? Why can’t my arms be toned like theirs? Why is my stomach a little softer than the girls on those pages?
Oh — I forgot — I’m a real life person with two kids and a full-time job that I actually have to go to and I can’t afford a personal trainer or a vegan chef or get paid to workout. I don’t have someone taking my photograph and then editing it and airbrushing it to make me look six feet tall with thighs the size of most women’s biceps. I actually look like this….
That’s me.
That’s my body.
Two children grew in that stomach.
Those arms still carry them.
Those breasts are TINY, but they’re MINE!
No airbrushing at all.
My body is far from perfect, but it’s far better than what it once was and it’s getting better everyday. It may never look like the people in the pages of the magazines. As many times as I workout with Jillian in the morning — I may never look like her. No matter how badly I want it I may never have a six-pack. My ass may never be as high and tight as I think it should be, but that’s life. Sometimes it just isn’t fair.
I didn’t win the genetic lottery and I have to pay attention to every morsel I put into my mouth. I know this and I deal with it. Some days are easier than others, but why oh why do magazines meant to uplift and celebrate women still insist on telling us with the photographs that they use that we are supposed to look a certain way? Why do they continue to tell us that to be happy we have to have perky breasts, thighs that don’t touch, hips like a 12 year old boy and the abs of someone not of this planet?!
This is probably never going to be my reality…
It will more than likely never be the reality of most women I know, but that doesn’t make us any less beautiful. That doesn’t make us any less sexy and it shouldn’t make us less of a celebration in magazines on news stands every where. We are all beautiful whether we truly believe it about ourselves or not.
End Rant….
Even if they weren’t airbrushed (who am I kidding!!) they at the very least. Lit in the most flattering light possilbe. Spray tanned to create definition where there may be NONE. Tons of make up. Plus they took like a kajillion pictures and they picked the very very best one (to airbrush). If it is making you feel bad even for one second Maria, cancel those subscriptions and get some fitness tips from other bloggers…real women JUST LIKE YOU who take normal pictures and maybe have a better ass or bigger tits or whatever, but what you are looking at is REAL. Your pics rock by the way. You are gorgeous!
If I could I would give you 2 of my cup sizes…and then after you did one marathon training run you would say, “here Jen, thanks for the loan but these are a giant pain…you run with these things?” “Not that much actually, and never without 2 bras.” True story.
Awesome stuff Maria. I have categorized this machine that tries to get women to feel bad about themselves as a crime against humanity. No bullshit. What the fitness industry sells ruins lives and sometimes kills. I realize that not all bulimic or anorexic women are are living this way because of the media but even one is too many.
this is a great post. it is way too easy to get caught up in an unrealistic idea of what women should look like and quite frankly, it’s incredibly harmful. I wish magazines would lead the force on spreading a new message!
Natalie — I totally agree! Normally I read fitness and health magazines to escape the idea that we all need to be Victoria Secret model types, but I feel like these images are even creeping into these magazines as well. I would much rather see women who look like women performing the exercises and posing in the workout gear!