Sunday, September 06, 2009

More Media Madness

Every morning while eating breakfast and drinking my first cup of coffee, I read various email accounts, Facebook pages and news sources. I also fight evil doers in various Facebook applications, but that is not the point of this blog. What is the point? Absolute disdain for the choice of cnn.com's staff picking the below article as it's lead for the day.

Why Exercise Won\'t Make You Thin

Where do I even begin? It is proof to the disturbingly unwell world in which we live that the quest for thinness trumps the efforts for health care reform, the crack in the San Francisco Bay Bridge that shut down this national wonder, and resignation of a top presidential advisor. Clearly, worrying about wastelines is more important than the 900 people rescued from a ferry in the Phillipines or the international relations question of Chavez and Iran working together. Silly me, I thought the news was going to report on, well, news!

Adding insult to the injury is the article itself. I did not read it - I don't need to read someone else's opinion about the best ways to lose weight. I'm sick of this world that is obsessed with thinness - an ideal body that most people will never have. My theory? Change the ideal. I would suggest several alternative titles to this article to improve the overall climate in discussing weight:

- Certain Exercise Routines Increase Hunger
- The Key to Happiness: All Things in Moderation
- Learning to Love the Body You're In
- Why Do You Exercise?
- Fitness is Not Being a Number

I could go on, but I won't. Sure, these titles may not be as "catchy" or "hip" as the one generated by the authors of this article, but they are a lot less damaging to the national psyche. The error in their title is the assumption that the world wants to be thin. It tells me that I should be exercising to lose weight - that this will not work, and that I should read their story to figure out what will make me thin. Make me thin. Does anyone else see the problem with that? Fitness and health are NOT about the size of my pants. It's a state of total being achieved through working WITH the body instead of against it. The goal of exercise is to increase health and wellness, NOT simply working towards a smaller number.

How are we to change this world obsessed with unnatural thinness when even CNN covers this topic as its lead story??? There is SO much more to the world than numbers and scales and calories burned vs. calories consumed. Instead of reading about what will and will not make you thin... try getting up and LIVING your life. Even if your size doesn't change, my hunch is that your overall happiness and wellness will increase exponentially.

1 comment:

Kate said...

<3 maybe we can be friend this way also!