Fitness For Health or Beauty (published by Kraven Magazine)
America has just recently passed on the prestige of being the world’s most obese country to neighboring Mexico. Being number 2 is definitely a start, but we shouldn’t get carried away and stop there. As our country becomes more and more into these “gluten free” and juice crazes, we should expect our obesity level to also decrease more. But overall, is this newfound trend for health just that: a trend? Or is this the start of a new healthy America?
People in the states come in all shapes and sizes, from different backgrounds and regions. We all have different perspectives and different expectations out of life. This variety is what makes us such a unique country, and ultimately is why we can have such amazing creativity and innovation. But this also means we all have a different take on what being “healthy” actually is.
Healthy, for the lack of a better term, is when we are at an ideal weight for our height and age, along with getting the required nutrients from our diet. What this really means is we go to the gym at least 3 times a week and eat food that is high in nutritional value (dark greens, lentils, fish). This kind of lifestyle is what we should ultimately shoot for, but unfortunately life doesn’t always work out this perfectly. We all get tired from the work grind, and sometimes we don’t go to the gym when we are supposed too, or worse, we go to that amazing neighborhood bakery and splurge on a slice of pie (or two), to comfort ourselves from a hard tiring day. Habits like these, though bad, aren’t awful.
Everyone needs a “cheat day”. No one, save maybe a Victoria’s Secret model, should not have a cheat day. It’s just inhuman to deny us the basic human right of French fries or cake. Some people don’t see it this way and may not believe in having cheat days. Or worse, when a person is actually a perfectly normal and healthy weight, they may not see themselves as being healthy! And no, this doesn’t apply only towomen; men are also guilty of this frame of mind.
Especially for Urban citizens and young people, we are almost expected to look as perfect and sculpted as our bodies naturally allow. We are even pushed to go beyond those natural limits if we are so unhappy with what god (or genetics) gave us. Everyday, more people are starting to turn to plastic surgery for nose jobs, chest implants, and various other forms of surgery that we normally wouldn’t think exist; like calve implants. What’s new is that men our starting to follow this body molding trend alongside women. While this isn’t working out, ultimately this form of improving someone’s body is where fitness for beauty comes in.
If we’re a person who doesn’t believe in plastic surgery (or just can’t afford it), we’ll just resort to the gym to improve our bodies. When you go to the gym and see those lean stick thin women lifting 7 pound weights in various movements or those huge muscular guys grunting like gorillas deadlifting weights as heavy as a truck, we have to think to ourselves, is that really necessary?
In New York, it might be necessary in order for us to get that “dream” guy or girl, but is it really for the unknown future lover or for our own vanity? When is it appropriate to cut the ties of excessive fitness that really doesn’t help at all with our health but just enhances our own beauty and selfishness?
Sadly there really isn’t a clear answer for this topic. As much as we shouldn’t care about how we look, we live in a society that is becoming more and more dependent on how you present yourself to the world. Having a “healthy” body almost isn’t enough anymore in our well connected world, especially for urban citizens and young (40’s and below) people.
An employer and potential significant other may correlate an un-sculpted body with a person who doesn’t take him or herself, or life, seriously. A person that works out for more than just health tends to exude a greater sense of confidence that others easily notice. Still, not everyone is meant to be a bodybuilder or a supermodel, that’s why those jobs exist in the first place. But clearly just being considered “healthy” isn’t good enough for millennials.
Instagram and other forms of social media have skewed our perspectives on beauty. Ultimately our idea of beauty will still change as we as country and world continue to change, but at this point in time we need to own what we have and where we are in life. This doesn’t mean we should all go to our plastic surgeon and get our long belated sweet 16 nose job on our 24th birthday, but it does mean we should try and work for that image that we want.
Fitness for health and beauty are so interrelated in our lives now that they might as well be considered the same thing. After we go to the gym, we except to not only feel better about ourselves but also look better. And really we should. Once our bodies start getting thinner or more defined, we would have already felt results for our health.
Still, the ultimate ideal weight is the weight that makes us happy. In this way, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We all have different preferences and types, so at the end of day, it’s ourselves that we need to make happy, not other people.
