I joined a gym.
That was a couple weeks ago actually, but I went today and it got me thinking about why I was there. The fact is that I enjoy going. I feel significantly better after I go. Its not just because I've over come my laziness, or because I'm slowly working towards a thinner, healthier me. I feel better because the blood is pumping and my heart is pounding, and my brain has released the collection of hormones that make me feel happy.
But it got me thinking about our desire to be skinny. Not healthy, but skinny.
Working at a grocery store I see an assortment of goodies pass through my till everyday, and an assortment of magazines. You shouldn't be surprised to find out that the people who buy three tubs of gummy bears are also the people who buy the magazines that promise to help you lose 15 pounds in a week. My guess is that the first thing in the magazine involves not eating three tubs of gummy bears.
So we've been told that we need to look a certain way. We keep seeing these diets that promise to help us lose 'x' amount of pounds over a given period of time, usually a very short period of time. They are quick fixes to a serious problem with society.
We don't want to be healthy. We want to be society's version of pretty.
When I joined my gym I was asked why I wanted to join. The lady informed me that I didn't need to lose weight, which made me feel pretty good about myself. I told her that I wanted to be fit and I wanted to be healthy.
Being healthy has less to do with your actual weight than we are led to believe. It has a lot to do with what you eat, and what you eat has a lot to do with how much you weigh.
But let's look at two examples.
Any of my brother's friends know that he is really tall and really skinny. I'm pretty sure he's somewhere between five-seven and five-nine , and he can't possibly weigh more than 110 pounds. Which means he has a BMI (Body Mass Index) of somewhere between 17.2, and 16. Both fall under the recommended 18.5 meaning he is severely underweight and at an increased risk of health problems.
That might be because he lives on Energy drinks and junk food. At 17 years old he lives on a steady stream of sugar and caffeine. He can eat 3 bowls of pasta a night and not gain weight. He has the kind of metabolism that anyone else would kill for.
Meanwhile your average football player in the NFL is classified as being somewhere between overweight and obese by the BMI because they're all muscle. They live a significantly healthier lifestyle than most of America. Vancouver Canucks Assistant Captain, Ryan Kessler is 6'2" and 205 lbs (courtesy of the Vancouver Canucks Website), meaning BMI of 26.3, which is listed as overweight and having increased health risks.
But that's because the BMI is very limited. It doesn't consider extra muscle acquired by spending your life on skates, working out every day of your life. If you are a certain weight and a certain height, you are overweight.
Society, mostly the media, but a huge portion of society, has created a standard image that people should fit into. Its the one reason I actually feel bad for celebrities, especially the women. Their bodies are so closely monitored by the press, to the point where they must fit into a very specific look. If they slip below a certain weight they're anorexic. If they start to gain weight they're rumored to be pregnant. Heaven forbid they actually get fat.
So we starve ourselves and push our bodies to the point of collapse to get to the perfect weight. But what are we then? Are we healthy? Crash diets don't work because there is no lifestyle change. We simply get to the weight we want and go back to the way we were before, or worse.
We have models whose bodies are splashed across hundreds of magazines for our teenagers and preteens to read, who are so severely underweight some of them might actually make my brother look fat. They aren't healthy. The things they have to do to their bodies to look a certain way are imposed on our children and society starts to suggest that this is how we're supposed to look.
So while the average weight of a person in America goes up, the preferred weight goes down. We don't aim for healthy, we aim for skinny. We end up with the pendulum swinging too far the other way, with girls as young as 12 and sometimes younger, dealing with issues like starving themselves and even bulimia.
So what kind of image do we set out? Here's where I'm actually a little lost.
You cannot impose a healthy lifestyle on someone. They have to want it. It can be encouraged by participating in one yourself and encouraging those around you to do the same. But forcing a child to do something they don't want to, like join a sports team they aren't interested in, or go on long hikes that simply tire them out, is counter productive. They start to hate physical activity and retreat back to their virtual worlds. A required gym class only helps if students don't decide to make it a spare by not going, and it only encourages you to participate if you feel you are doing well, and actually enjoy it. Otherwise you end up hating that it's forced upon you. As a teenager I hated gym class, and it took a long time to change my attitude physical activity.
You could try to scare people into it. If you don't take care of yourself you'll die of heart disease and Cancer and all sorts of terrible things. But fear is a terrible way to do things. It leads to people being obsessed with the result and not the way of achieving them. It is what causes anorexia in teenagers who fear being seen as fat or ugly by their peers. Fear leads to destructive behaviours, crash diets, binge and purge lifestyles, and other unhealthy ways of achieving a goal.
Somehow we actually have to find a way to make physical activity an important part of our lives, and healthy eating an easier choice, and the desire to simply be skinny less desirable. Because a person who is skin and bones because of an eating disorder is not as attractive as someone who is healthy because of good choices in life, and can be less healthy than someone who is overweight.
We need to encourage our children, and ourselves, to choose to be healthy. Eating right, exercising and drinking lots of water can make us feel better every day. It's the difference between how you feel when you have a cold and how you feel when the virus starts to go away. When we eat junk and do nothing, we have less energy, less motivation, and we likely to get sick more often. When we eat healthy food, exercise frequently and choose healthy options like going outside and drinking water, we have more energy and are less likely to get sick.
When we encourage each other, we help each other to live better. We need to make personal choices, and share those choices with each other. That way everyone can live better.
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