January 4, 2000 --- 12:31 AM EST

Fitness vs. Shape for the February 2000 issue? Skip Fitness, get Shape. Fitness is getting worse and worse. I was really annoyed with how little in depth reading there was and how the tidbits were inane. One tidbit was how this person makes herself feel better by comparing herself to people she sees in the park and how "compared to a lot of people I look pretty darn good!" How is this kind of thinking good? How does it make you a better person? You are basing your esteem and how you feel about yourself not by reaching in and embracing who you are but how you perceive your attractiveness compared to other people. Lookism. Where looks are valued more than substance. Where the perceptions are more important than the actualities.

Um. Yah.

The article that really made me pitch a fit was one called "Target Your Body Type." The copy was mostly fluff advice like what workout you should do if you are this shape and what you should ignore. Blurbs, not in-depth copy here. That's another thing, too many tidbits and not enough in-depth reporting anymore in Fitness.

All the advice under all the body shapes in the article article could have been made more useful and written up with less of a lookist slant but then it would have taken less space and I think they were trying to stretch a "filler" material into an actual full spread article. They are hurting for content, IMHO!

The article at first glance comes off as trying to be some helpful guide but once you apply critical thinking it still subversive to positive self-esteem. That makes me angry.

They chose to illustrate the article with naked women. I found that offensive. I don't care they were silhouetted, I still found it offensive.

I think the naked body is beautiful, and nakedness itself doesn't give me a problem. It does though, if you are going to be exploiting the naked form to cause shame or make people feel bad or try to categorize people by their looks. They hit us when we are vulnerable -- thinking about ourselves naked.

I would have thought looking at the shapes lovely if they illustrated an article about building self-esteem, cultivating many beauty ideals, appreciating shape uniqueness. With carefully chosen wording to nurture, to give the women who read it the start of self-respect, the desire to care for and nurture their existing bodies and view their bodies as an integral part of themselves.

Instead these naked shapes were set against the article about working to "fix" whatever they said was wrong with that shape. It sends readers scurrying to compare if they are the "good" shape or one of the "bad" shapes. It makes them loathe themselves. Doesn't build esteem but erodes it. Encourages this fragmentation of self where the body you inhibit is not part of the real you just this thing that torments you that you are stuck with that you feel obligated to reshape emotionlessly like ti was clay rather than nurture like it was the living entity it is. It's YOU!

As soon as you call this shape the "balanced body" and hold it up as the ideal and this other shape "thin but flabby" or "Fit but fleshy" -- perfectly fine women are going to be checking themselves out against the photos to see if they are the "right" kind of slender -- "balanced" or "thin but flabby" or too chunky or too whatever. Like they aren't as valuable as people now because they aren't like the ideal model. They not only not have the "right" shape, their own shapes are unbalanced! Oh no!

I'd like to think no one would be trying to identify with the models in this article and everyone who came across it would shout "Lookist crap! Argh!" and then turn the page and not care. But I found myself doing it, getting sucked in, trying to figure out which model I was closest to -- mentally comparing my naked body to the women on the pages before I realized I was doing it. Then I got mad when I caught myself getting sucked into that kind of thinking. I HATE that kind of thinking.

That kind of lookist, comparative road to self-criticism kind of thinking.

Oh, man, my thighs are too fat to be a "balanced body." I must be "fit and fleshy" and that is bad! Oh no! I must suck! Look at her! She's pretty! That means I am ugly.

They handled the biggest model shape with little tact or sensitivity. To wit:

Out of Shape and Overweight: There is no hiding the fact that you have weight to lose (like our 5' 7 1/2". 210 lb model here.) When it comes to exercise, you tire easily and feel uncoordinated.

In other words, if you are this tall and weigh this much or more you are this huge blob without any grace at all. Be larger than this still and you just suck you cow you. Is that what we are trying to say here? Why did we all of a sudden start listing heights and weights now with this model? Huh?! The two more slender models had no such info printed with them.

And what about body language? Why is the largest model posed in these shameful looking poses? Looking down with her back to us in the main spread and then on her own page she is giving us a side view of herself, looking down with her hand up like she is trying to push our looking at her away. She's got nothing to be ashamed of for being the size she is. Why do they pose her like that?

The copy across the large model's body reads "Gain energy and body confidence!" Well how is this poor model going to do that if we are slamming her like that in the other copy next to her? Printing that caption directly on her body implies that she has no energy and has no body confidence because she is bigger than the other models. She's been labeled in all senses of the word.

Sheesh.

Maybe she is strong and a wonderful dancer and way more graceful than us with buckets of pep and energy and joie de vivre. Who are we to tell her she "obviously needs to lose weight." For what? If she is sick from excess weight that's her and her doctor's business! She is otherwise groovin' -- why bug her?! The fitness tips for this shape were to ignore "hard workouts, complicated fitness classes, sports that require advanced skills."

Shouldn't it be people who have not been working out of ANY shape ignore that stuff? Why paste this info with the largest model? Why single her out as the one who shouldn't get to try out advanced stuff? How do we know she's not a gym rat? Why do we assume she's some lazy couch bitch because of her size?!

Lookist and weightist! Argh! ARGH! AAAAARRRRGH!

Not only does it invite self-loathing towards oneself, it invites treating others with disdain -- all based on looks, appearances.

This article just yanked all my chains. Bleah. Who wrote that article? Why did the editor ok it? Why did it get printed? Grrrrrrrr!

Not that I expect magazines to be the only great moral compass for my life, but jeez!

~Astrophe

Book: Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising by Jean Kilbourne

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