Sport-billy's vs Nerds

Today I was looking on the internet and I found this....

from here

Body Image

I've been recently thinking about body image and where our desire to look a certain way comes from. It seems that most women aspire to be ultra thin and most men aspire, these days, to be the same - incredibly thin. There has been a trend for men to wear really skinny ladies-style jeans.

Thinking about this has led me to the following conclusions:

Magazines are encouraging this behaviour by publishing pictures of models who are already thin and then the magazines are 'photoshopping' the pictures.
Evidence:

and again..

Is this the same woman?
I conducted a straw-poll at work of the men I know - out of 16 blokes asked, 13 said they preferred a woman to have a shape as opposed to the angular bony offerings that the fashion houses seem to be pushing on us.

Both of the examples I posted here, if they were real, have got body shapes that pre-pubescent boys would be ashamed of. It makes you wonder exactly what 'floats the boats' of these men(?) who design clothes. It is as if they prefer young boys to women.

 Seriously - Who alive could fit into jeans like this?

And finally - Men are not immune too from this -

Even I as a rank amateur can photoshop better than this - And here, ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure; we have the 'Origami man' (Above)

America's Biggest Loser

I was reading a blog by Kai Hibbard that details some of her experiences on the 'Biggest Loser' gameshow. In a nutshell; this gameshow is a competition to see who can lose the most weight the winner receiving $250,000 in prize money.

As you can imagine, a show that just shows people dieting and exercising in a healthy way is not really going to be stimulating viewing; so by all accounts the dieting and exercising is taken to the eXtreme.

Ryan C. Benson, who lost 122lbs of his 330lb starting weight, will be absent from a reunion; he thinks he has been shunned by the show because he publicly admitted that he dropped some of the weight by fasting and dehydrating himself to the point that he was urinating blood.

About Kai's experience: Standing before a cheering studio audience in a skintight blackcocktail dress -- after dropping 118lbs. -- she looked like she was living a fairy tale. But just three weeks later, the cameras weren’t rolling as she lay shaking on her bathroom floor. Her immune system was shot. She was covered in bruises and losing her hair. And she’d gained back 31 lbs. simply from drinking water

Kai's body basically went into starvation mode...

The following; regarding the signing of releases and interviews is taken from here

Contestants are required to sign releases that stand out even in the waiver-intensive world of reality television.

One such release, which was provided to The New York Times by a former contestant who did so on the condition of anonymity, says that

“no warranty, representation or guarantee has been made as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals who examine me or perform any procedures on me in connection with my participation in the series, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series.”

This basically says - The people who are telling you to abuse your body are not qualified and have no real idea what is happening to your body!


Getting contestants to talk openly about the environment of the program is difficult. Shortly after a reporter started contacting former contestants to interview them about their experiences, a talent producer on the series sent an e-mail message to many former contestants reminding them that “serious consequences” could ensue if they ever talked to a reporter without the show’s permission.

To do so could subject them to a fine of $100,000 or $1 million, depending on the timing of the interview, according to the e-mail message, which was obtained by The New York Times. The show’s producers did provide an opportunity to interview several former contestants, but the interviews were conducted with an NBC publicist listening in


Even the show’s trainer Jillian Michaels admits all is not as it seems.:

Intentional dehydration? Manipulated filming schedules? Diuretics? “Oh absolutely!” Jillian tells Star in our Jan. 25 issue on sale now. “There is a lot of game playing that goes on. The Biggest Loser is a game show. It is what it is.” 

And a final word from me.

What a thoroughly despicable show that is preying on a mixture of people's greed and negative body image.

Up!

I think I must be the last person in the world to see this film! I had read all the reviews, saying that the first 10 minutes was incredibly emotive and well written - I don't mind admitting to the fact that I did actually cry like a little girl! How they could fit so much emotion into 10 minutes of film with no dialogue was incredible - It puts most other films to shame.

I think I must be turning into a wuss!

Anyway; the film made two fantastic points that really stuck in my mind:

• Appreciate what you've got - You never know when it will end.
• It's the mundane things in life that your kids remember

More Weight Loss

1lb of fat - I have discovered is quite big!

I weighed my (almost) 3 year old son the other day and he weighed 2.5 stones (35lbs) - In the last 6 months, I have lost 39lbs - which is more than my toddler weighs...

Crikey!

When I have lost another 12lbs - I will have lost the equivalent of my 6 year old daughter.

I'm still amazed that this diet I am on allows me to eat fantastic food in unlimited quantities!

Ego fragility

It still amazes me how fragile our egos are.

We can convince ourselves so easily that we are in control, everything is great and that we are strong..


Then something totally innocuous happens and you cop a bit of 'gentle', deserved flak over it and the following happens:

• You start to analyse in an over critical way what happened
• You start to justify why it happened
• You distort what the person who took you to task actually said
• Your mental image of what their face looked like and their voice sounded like gets distorted and you feel hurt - like it was a personal attack rather than an admonishment
• Worst of all, you start comparing yourself to other people who do a similar job to you and find yourself feeling smug that "yeah - I got a rollocking for this but I didn't screw up as bad as Fredrick when he did [insert other innocuous incident here]
• You start to doubt the praise that the person who took you to task has given you in the past.

All of these things are natural... but stupid..

Here's what should happen:

• Admit you made a mistake
• Apologise to anyone concerned
• Man the heck up and get over it!

There - Whole again!