Nusrat Jahan Progga
It is surprising and slightly annoying how some people seem to confuse being fit with being skinny. This may sound like a shocker but weight loss is more like a side-effect than a sign of good health.
Weight loss has become one of the most popular marketing gimmicks, since skinny (or strong) always sells. And it only sells because media has trained the minds of the people to be afraid of fat.
In most cases, people are made to be scared of it by associating it with ill-health. It is as if every little deposit of fat reminds us of our “lack of responsibility and morality”. Marketers are exploiting our fears and using it to sell their not-so-healthy commodities.
These so called inspiring-you-to-stay-fit companies are feeding on our fear, leaving us with empty pockets and emotional reserves, setting us up for endless failure.
As long as we are afraid of fat, and want to do anything to get rid of it, marketers will be able to sell anything to us, no matter of how well it works. They might as well sell you a bag of air claiming that it is some sort of miracle drug which helps you to become an absolute zero figure.
the mainstream media lost its collective cool over the results of a study that followed the long-term success (um, failure) of former Biggest Loser contestants in keeping weight off. These bodies, which began as “obese” were resistant to long-term extreme weight loss. Their metabolisms rioted, slowing down until weight suppression tactics like dieting and excessive exercise stopped working. The weight piled back on. The media was shocked by this because the possibility that extreme weight loss might not be achievable for a portion on the population went against everything that it’s been saying for years.
Don’t stop striving to introduce sustainable, healthful changes to your nutrition and exercise if you want to improve your metabolic function. But because before-and-after photos of changes in your metabolic function aren’t marketable, what they’re really saying is: Don’t stop focusing on forcing or struggling to maintain a visible change in body size or shape.
We’ve been cheering for their suffering and using their suffering as “inspiration” to suffer ourselves. A thin woman struggles through an exercise, and her inner monologue reveals that she feels silly, awkward, or in pain. She completes the exercise anyway, and she is “better for it.”
In this ad, Nike is blatantly marketing fatphobia to us. The subtext literally says: “You need us to motivate you with pictures of ‘perfect’ models-slash-actresses in our clothing. Without this marketing, you will never fit in, be able to wear clothes like this, or be ‘better’” – where “better” implies thinner/ leaner /more muscular/ more toned than you are now.
Invest in your health, sure – but do so with eyes wide open and (whenever necessary) wallet shut.
Your body is not for sale.