Michelle

I was traveling recently and decided to pick up some easy reading for my trip, so I bought a “women’s magazine”. I know, I know… what was I thinking? I should have been tipped off when the cover expounded the virtues of a woman who had lost a lot of weight and looked great, and right alongside that was a note that nearly a dozen chocolate recipes were inside. I can guarantee you that if she made those chocolate recipes she wouldn’t be looking like that! From Slim Fast ads and “good health” sections to pork recipes and french fry taste tests. Talk about blatant mixed messages!

In another magazine I dug out, there were exercises to ‘slim your thighs’ and recipes for bacon and onion perogies, cinnamon buns and other fine ways to turn your ass the size of a house. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t expect women’s magazines to be health or fitness magazines (*see note below), but the contradictions are crazy-making. How to lose weight, over indulge and lose your mind all for $5. It’s a form of insanity I think; we pay for magazines that give us mixed messages to make us crazy. Next time, I’ll save my money and bring along a book.

* Please don’t think I’m deluded enough to believe that women’s health and fitness magazines are about either health or fitness; they’re usually about “how to be sexy for him” rather than “ass kicking workouts”. In fact, a friend on Facebook recently complained that a women’s fitness magazine she bought was more about advertising and botox than actual fitness.