#plaaaay
It’s fucked up how much advertising for health and fitness stuff focuses on “this will make you ~more attractive~ which is just code for ‘thin’ with an optional 'toned but useless muscles’ spin if you’re a man” when none of that is the goal or even the most likely result of fitness programs. It shouldn’t be about being appealing to others it should be about being more confident and having more fun in what you and your body can do.
There should be a much bigger focus on like… Yoga as a way to gain muscle range in recovery from injury. Weight training so you can carry your kids when they get tired, or so you can put your mate on your shoulders during a gig to see better. Looking into diet choices so you can cook a homemade meal for friends. Rock climbing or obstacle courses or parkour because when was the last time you, as an adult, got to look at a fun challenge and say to your pal 'gaun then, bet you cannae dae that, race ye’? Football, rugby, basketball, dodgeball, it’s about playing,not about… Dress size or some such bullshit.
Everyone I know who enjoys exercise has these sorts of reasons - my dad’s an avid climber because it lets him have fun with his friends completing physical puzzles and cheers him up when he’s stressed, my mate cycles because it helps his leg injury hurt less and means he can have fun hanging out with people for longer without being in pain, when I stopped eating meat and started having half a thought about nutrition it made me genuinely enjoy cooking for the first time. You should be encouraged to walk or jog because there’s something interesting over there, not out of some sense of aesthetic burden.
Capitalism has driven us to a point where the narrative is “you’re ugly and morally deficient, which are of course the same thing, unless you do fitness programs you hate chasing an arbitrary standard”. There’s no fun in it any more.
Fuck off, burn your local gym, and meet me round the waste ground for a game of rounders.
