Exercise Until You Die

Because I couldn't add them at the bottom, you see before you three images, and I ask as you look at the last two: What is the story with older women and their over-worked sinewy figures? Hmm yuck. On the left you'll see a close up of Madonna's arms and to the right it is the ever so slight Sarah Jessica Parker. Parker has always claimed to be tiny naturally, and to eat whatever she wants...okay, I'll take her word for it, but does one just naturally have arms that look as though they could be the embalmed flesh of a dead triathelete? What I mean is they don't get like that without some sort of strength training, and that isn't by accident. Women over 40 attempting to stave off the aging process through excessive exercise seems to me to be an unfortunate circumstance of our obsession with youth. Maintaining a figure devoid of the natural deposits of fat on a woman's body (hips, butt, breasts, thighs) seems to be a great distortion of the idea of health. And is it any wonder that going to an extreme like this to feel younger actually makes these women look cadaverous?

It is the softness and fullness of a woman's body that denotes the very thing that makes us so universally desireable; it is surprising to me that in their pursuit of success the universal and timeless fascination with the feminine form is a type of power, inborn in them, so nonchalantly tossed aside. Now tell me, would you want those gesticulating appendages pitching an idea to you, with sunken faces rife with physical stress? Or perhaps would you be more willing to do what the woman in the top photo of the page suggests? That is Monica Belucci, who is 43. I realize her photo has the advantage of professional lighting, but those are her hips, breasts, and arms, which were more than likely reduced in size by a retoucher.