The book.
Skinny Bitch in the Kitch? (the cookbook)
Skinny Jeans, Skinny Chef, Skinny Water, The Skinny Cow®, Lifesyles of the Rich and Skinny (I’m not kidding, Google it), Skinny Bastard (Skinny Bitch for men) and on and on.
What is going on here? What is so appealing about “skinny”? It is not just the opposite of “fat” as a descriptor, it’s a negative descriptor as well!
“Skinny”, as a marketing tool is not only disengenuous, but potentially harmful. Most of the contents and products mentioned are actually helpful, beneficial and useful. It’s the message that is the problem.
“Skinny” is NOT optimal. OPTIMAL is optimal. What is optimal? It depends. It depends on your genetics, your body frame, what your vocation is and what your avocation is. It is also what YOU are comfortable with within the parameters of health standards. Not a Madison Avenue ad agency’s decision about what you should be comfortable with. There are body composition statistics that I could refer to, but that isn’t what this article is about. It’s about body image, goals, anxiety, and health. A theme that my regular readers are no doubt familiar with are the two questions:
”Are you in the best physical conditions that your genetics and environment allow?”
“Why not?”
This isn’t to imply that there aren’t real reasons why not, but to get an internal dialog going to distinguish the real reasons from the excuses. There may be one or the other, but my experience tells me that it’s probably a combination of both. Sometimes we use a legitimate reason for lagging progress as an excuse to do nothing at all, or worse, regress.
Some people who are overweight are deluding themselves with the help of the same marketers with the other extreme. There is a fine line between marketing to people who are larger than the norm, and coddling them into the complacent idea that it’s OK to be “full figured” or “big and tall”. It’s not healthy, it’s not comfortable, it’s not convenient and it’s not OK. Sometimes it’s even dangerous.
There are many reasons and circumstances that get in the way of reaching “optimal”. Some of them absolutely valid. Everyone needs to set their own priorities. Don’t confuse that with disregarding your physiology on a permanent basis. Don’t make the mistake that so many people make by thinking that WORRYING about it is the same thing as DOING something about it. Anxiety just starts a physiological fight/flight response that produces a hormone cascade that is very detrimental. Not to mention the psychological implications from long term anxiety.
What’s worse than someone who is overweight that has anxieties about getting “skinny”? The person who is already at a normal body composition that has anxieties about getting “skinny”! And what’s worse than that? The person who is already skinny that has the same anxieties! Now we’re into something pathological. Don’t go there. This is the only body that you have. Be nice to it. Please? Don’t stuff it. Don’t starve it. Don’t beat it up. Eat well. Move your body. Set a goal. Write it down. Develop an action plan to implement your goal. Then take action. Every day. We need you.
“You are not a bag of meat!” The lecturer was in her face. “We need to stop treating ourselves like bags of meat.” “There are processes going on inside us that are absolutely miraculous, and should be treated as such.” This has resonated within me for years. This is what motivated me to be a trainer and a coach. To instill the joy and respect of the body and its processes that I have found, not just through exercise and sport, but through the mindset of treating my body like the gift that it is. Right now, look at the skin on the back of your hand and realize that your skin is not a “meat bag.” Your skin is a functioning organ, absorbing nutrients, shedding toxins, expanding and contracting to protect you. It’s a fascinating series of processes that most take for granted. Multiply that by the dozens of organs and hundreds of processes, you begin to see the miracle that is this choreographed dance of life that your body finds a way do regardless of how we treat it. Do you see the possibility of how this would be affected by treating your body optimally? Do you see the consequences of treating your body poorly? Everything you do has a negative or a positive effect on your body, including your thought process. There is no equilibrium. You are either regenerating or degenerating. Personally I’d like to hang around a while. Care to join me?
