Passing a newsagent last month
I was met by a striking feature headline on the front page of a newspaper. It
asked: Have you got your beach body
ready? Unfortunately, and somewhat randomly, there was a full length mirror
on the side of a nearby shelf. I was swiftly able to make a comparison between
the man in the couple pictured and me and make an equally swift conclusion that
my body was indeed not beach ready. Actually I’m not sure it ever has been,
given the evidence by which to make the comparison.
Walking back to my therapy
room, though the power of that headline struck me.
As you might expect the
couple were young, slim, toned and well-tanned. The message then; this is the
norm, perhaps even the required, look for the summer. And what a message that
is. Perfection by some unknown judge is the objective and failure to reach this
means you are not fit to be seen on the beach. That felt quite crushing.
Too detailed a conclusion, you
might think. Perhaps. Consider what the message might be for a young man, late
teens, surrounded by images of ‘buff’ role models devoting their time to
achieving that ‘buffness’ in the pursuit of success. Where that success is
defined not by what they can think or create but simply by the quality of the
toned body they must display.
Where that image of the
perfect physique is extreme it becomes illusory, unobtainable.
A passion for
fitness steps easily into being an obsession where the goal sought is always
out of reach but always required by this measure of success. From this comes
anxiety, depression through the perpetual pursuit of the unattainable. We are so much more than one, spurious
measure; we are the qualities that best tell the world who we really are.
This article first appeared in Gallery Magazine
