I have two bodies!

A couple of weeks ago I made an amazing discovery. Thanks to a facebook advertisement from a local health club, I now realise that I have two bodies; a winter body and a summer body.

The summer body, is apparently made in the winter, so I’m busy doing that as I write.

What a multi-tasker I am!

The health club offered to assess my winter body and tell me what I needed to improve before it was deemed acceptable as a summer body.  Well thank God and all her little angels that I did not boldly consider taking my winter body to the beach when the weather turns hotter.  Can you imagine the squeals of horror from other beach-goers who might suffer the trauma of seeing my unassessed winter flesh?

The health club was following the first law of advertising; create an insecurity and then offer a solution for purchase.  The problem is, that health clubs, cosmetic companies, weight loss organisations, and plastic surgeons are all playing the same game.  Their aim is to generate, then reinforce our beliefs that we are too fat, too thin, too old, too wrinkly or too ugly, and unfortunately, for the most part, we believe them!

During 2013-14, Australians are estimated to have spent $643.7 million on weight-loss counselling services, low-calorie foods and dietary supplements in their quests to slim down.  We also spend approximately $22 billion a year to look good and this includes cosmetics, trips to the hairdresser and beauty salons. Imagine what would happen to the economy if we all just decided we are actually just fine the way we are?

Now, I’m not suggested we all let our body hair run riot and stop taking a daily shower. These are obviously things that we do to ensure basic hygiene and prevent other people exited a building to avoid our own brand of personal odour.  However, I think we need to consider the motivation for the choices we make.

When we take a product home because an advertiser has shamed us into the purchase, we take a little bit of that shame into our home along with the product.  We might dab a bit of that shame onto our face each day, in the hope that we spent enough to hide the wrinkles.  We might take our shame off to the gym, in the hope that we sweat some of it out.  Others take their shame to a weight loss meeting for everyone else to look at, with the hope that they will have lost more shame this week than all the others.  If we are bullied, shamed or coerced into buying something to make us feel better, it will not make us feel better at all.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves a vital question when considering making a fitness, beauty or weight loss purchase.

“Am I buying this/doing this because I feel good about myself or bad about myself?”

I will leave you with that thought and go and make my winter body a cup of coffee. My summer body says she would prefer a glass of wine. One at a time ladies, one at a time!