Fitness
comes in all Shapes and Sizes
You
make New Year Resolutions almost every Year and also on all other New years in
the festival calendar to hit the gym. Your desperation certainly comes from the
glamorous models, actors and celebrities you idolize on screen. The drive gets pushy when you read all the
rants of entertainment columns in newspapers on celebrity body, their diet and
the extremes that these people go to achieve them. Adding more fuel to the ignited
desperation are the health features in newspapers and on the internet, which
showcase their own definition of fitness.
So
what exactly is fitness? Is it a hot body? Sharukh Khan’s six pack abs or sorry
eight pack abs (It may even get 12 packs by 2016), Deepika Padukone’s flat
belly or the Bollywood's bhai Salman Khan’s bulgy muscles ? The generation today; young
and old alike – are so hooked to the superficial parameters of fitness that the
whole age old concept of fitness has become debatable. Fitness according to your grandmother’s opinion
was eating the Ghee loaded paranthas, tasty meals cooked to perfection and being
immune to sickness. Fitness back then didn't conjure up to looking wafer thin
or ripping off one’s body with chiseled abs. There was a certain pride in
saying “Bhai, hum to khatey-peetey ghar
ke hein.” Nonetheless, the emphasis
was on what the body can do and not on what the body looks like.
Fast
forwarding the time today, skinny bodies for girls and six pack abs for men
with zero fats are projected as fitness. As a bottom line Fitness is no more
being immune and having a good metabolism. It is not even about eating
delicious meals or rather home cooked healthy meals but is now about 6 times a
day meal, raw vegetable, boiled fish, grilled spice-less meats and green
juices. Obnoxious as the fads sound too many, today it is all about ‘eating
right’ and this habit of eating correctly is munching on like cave men did back
in time. Precisely, even if the food part had to ignored, how can the body shape
and size be sidelined? Especially, as we
are living in excruciatingly demanding age of photoshopped images that are
airbrushed to perfection.
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When
you think of fitness shapes, sizes; I am sure mathematically defying physical
measurements toss up in the mind. The reason a physically huge girl gives up
when she loses weight but fails to look wafer thin with all the exercising. It has become so necessary to conform to the
media generated norms of ‘Physical perfection’ that fitness has taken a
backseat. Fitness has become easily associated with ‘physical perfection’ and
this is dangerously become a matter of low self confidence and esteem among
people. A man with six-pack abs or a
wafer thin girl fainting or suffering from fatigue is acceptable but a boy or a
girl on a bulkier physical appearance but immune to sickness and who may be
physically , mentally and socially strong are deemed as unfit.
It
is time the focus has to be put where it belongs – fitness in its true
sense. To set the record straight fitness
is being mentally, physically and emotionally strong. You need to accept that
fitness as well as beauty in the world comes in all shapes and sizes.
Stereotypes and hypes cannot define the real beauty, strength and creativity of a
person. Be proud of the awesome person you really are. You may be tall, short ,
fat, skinny – it just doesn't matter unless you are ‘FIT’ – fit in a healthy
way and not by physical perfections.
