What is a beach body anyway?

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