At http://www.expositorymagazine.net/women_fitness.php, in the new
edition of Expository Magazine released this week, the following may
be of interest?

Kate
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Women and Fitness by Olivia Lim

Naomi Wolf, the feminist author, thinks the beauty myth is not about
women at all but rather about men's institutions and institutional
power which is used to prescribe behaviour and not appearance.

Judging by the prevalence of anatomically perfect models and
television stars gracing our popular magazine covers, the media thinks
women should look like Elle MacPherson, also known as 'The Body.' Yet
The Bodyshop, the famous chain of natural skincare stores, says only
eight out of a million women in the world look like supermodels.

With the media and society's obsession with women and their bodies, it
is no wonder that the deluge of information containing the predominant
message overwhelms women: Slim is beautiful, fat is ugly.

About-Face, a US-based media literacy organization and watchdog of the
impact of mass media on the physical, mental and emotional well being
of women, says, "90 percent of all girls ages 3-11 have a Barbie doll,
an early role model with a figure that is unattainable in real life."

The organization also reviewed 10 of the most commonly read women's
and men's magazines for advertisements and articles related to weight
loss, and found that women's magazines contained 10.5 times more
articles related to dieting and weight loss than men's magazines.

Although men may suffer from the Adonis complex, women are generally
under more pressure to fight the battle of the bulge, and some lose
more than just the unwanted cellulite in the process. In her book The
Body Project, author and professor of women's studies at Cornell
University, Dr. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, wrote, "Girls today make the
body into an all-consuming project."

It is an all-consuming project that oftentimes turns into the eating
disorder faced by one in every hundred schoolgirls with anorexia.

The obsession women have with their bodies have spawned off many fad
diets and exercises that have left many disappointed women in their
wake. Yet women never fail to be enticed by the next new diet that
promises to help you "lose 10 kilos for just 10 dollars" in a matter
of one or two weeks.

A recent article in The Straits Times reported on how a popular
Malaysian television presenter suffered from high blood pressure and
hair loss after taking some slimming pills she bought off the shelf.
Her advice for women after having gone through this painful experience
is to do more exercises and dieting and avoid eating oily food.

However, the genetic makeup of our bodies does not react well to any
sudden weight loss caused by restricted food intake.

Bill Philips, CEO of EAS, a major US health supplement company, says
people who force themselves to stick with a crash diet will lose body
weight that comes from the loss of muscle tissue, instead of fat.

In his book Body-for-Life, Philips explains that once a person goes
off that diet - which everyone who has ever been on a diet does at
some point - it is certain that they will gain back the fat they lost
and more. "Our 'genetic programming' gives our bodies the ability to
control the production of enzymes, which, in turn, control every
aspect of our metabolism. Due to this fact, your body will 'fight
back' when you severely reduce food intake - it decreases the rate at
which it burns fat."

What people who frequently go on crash diets do not know is the way
our body metabolism works to ensure its survival when it is starved.
The body will start to burn off all the muscle tissue to conserve its
precious fat resources, because fat takes a longer time to be broken
down to fuel the body with energy. Also, our body fat serves as
insulation against harsh, external elements and will be utilized only
after most of the muscle tissue has been wasted.

This survival mechanism in our body slows down our metabolism and
makes it less efficient in burning calories. So when a person
eventually gives in to the hunger pangs and starts eating normally
again, the body will be more prone to gaining fat.

In other words: "Diets make you fat", says Steuart De Hoedt, a fitness
instructor and personal trainer at Century Fitness Center. "You get
thin and then fat again, and then thin again and then somewhere in
between, but you will never lose and maintain the weight you want if
you go on frequent dieting."

However, it is heartening to know that women are now more
knowledgeable about weight loss and are experimenting with healthier
ways to fight the flab.

De Hoedt, a 35-year-old defense engineer turned fitness instructor and
personal trainer, says most women now prefer to join gyms in an effort
to lose weight, tone up and get fit, rather than go on a diet.

"Generally they use all the equipment, but specifically the cardio
equipment - the stepper, the treadmill and the exercise stationary
bike", says De Hoedt." However, like every other fitness instructor
and personal trainer, De Hoedt believes that the best way for any
woman to achieve that lean, toned look, made popular by Hollywood
actresses such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Aniston, is to
combine aerobic and anaerobic (weight training) workouts and a
sensible diet.

"I think there's been a bit of a misnomer with what weights actually
do to the composition of your body; and people, especially women,
believe that they're going to get bigger by doing weight training,
whereas in fact, it is the complete reverse, because muscle is denser
than fat."

De Hoedt says women who have met with him for a personalized fitness
program, feel a little bewildered by the prospect of training with
weights. "They can't see how weight training is going to make them
smaller and help them lose weight, so, that's the first hurdle that we
have to try and overcome."

Tim Fritz, a free-lance writer for major fitness magazines such as
Muscle & Fitness and a part-time personal trainer, says, "I think most
women are still under the misconception that strength training will
make them big, bulky, and muscle-bound. More women would train with
heavier weight if they knew the truth about the benefits and effect of
strength training."

Although Fritz thinks that the media has helped in educating women
about the benefits of strength training for weight loss, osteoporosis,
and overall health, he feels more can be done to encouraged women to
train with weights. He feels that the fitness industry can play a part
to "dispel the rumours about strength training by explaining the
science and physiology of exercise (in layman's terms, of course), and
by explaining and demonstrating the benefits."

It helps that there are women such as Rikki Flanders, a competitive
power lifting participant and fitness instructor. As a female fitness
instructor and someone who has trained with weights for the past seven
years, Flanders says women are generally surprised when she tells them
she can lift a certain amount of weights and has been doing
competitive weight lifting, because her petite physique is atypical of
a bodybuilder's body.

However, she thinks women often come into the gym with unrealistic
expectations that set themselves up for a disappointment when goals
are not met after a period of training. "They think that paying to
join a gym and having a personal trainer will automatically give them
fast results to a better body. Some of them are not willing and
committed to putting in the hard work that is needed to produce an
effective overall body transformation."

As a result, some women go back to the old cycle of 'yo-yo dieting' or
hide behind excuses such as "I'm too busy" or "I'm not the physically
active type of person" to avoid exercising or going to the gym.

And then there are those who become obsessive about their exercise
regimes. Flanders recalls one woman who was preoccupied with
exercising and used to spend hours on the cardiovascular equipment at
the gym. "I don't think she liked working out, but she seemed to think
that she needed to do all those exercises to maintain her weight. In
fact, she wasn't very fat in the first place, she was rather slim."

Women need to realize that real women come in all shapes and sizes and
you can never be too thin or too fat, but only unhealthy. It is
unrealistic to mould yourself into a preconceived standard of a
feminine form.

While some women may be fortunate to be blessed with Barbie-like
statistics, the majority of women fall into the categories "from the
slim ectomorph to the plump, pear-shaped endomorph to the muscular
mesomorph, with several combinations in between", according to the CEO
of Weider Health and Fitness, Joe Weider.

Popularly known as the father of modern bodybuilding, the 70-something
Weider believes that every body is a beautiful body if it is a fit,
strong and lean one. He does not believe that a standard ideal
feminine shape exists, but instead encourages women to "be as
physically fit as your genetics allow."

It is crucial that women stop to think about the health problems
associated with weight gain and weight loss before striving to achieve
their dream body. Genetics is kind enough not to let us look like
carbon copies of each other, so it is time that we learn to work with
and celebrate our natural body structure. As Emily Dickinson so simply
puts it, "Beauty is not caused, it is."



Olivia Lim is a freelance writer from Singapore. She has a Bachelor of
Arts in English Language and Political Science from the National
University of Singapore and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from RMIT
University, Melbourne.

Her interest in writing projects include women's issues, health and
personal empowerment. She is available for commissioned feature
writing projects and can be contacted at newliv@....

Currently, she and her husband travel between Singapore and Bali,
where they are setting up a furnishing company.

If you have any questions about this article or her research, please
contact her at the above e-mail address.

Copyright © 2003 Olivia Lim --