nips and tucks
Well, you knew it was bound to happen. Zumba has come to the South End. It won’t be long before we’re overrun by personal trainers, Weight Watchers, fitness centers, nutritional supplement stores and eventually rampant steroid use. For a long long while we seemed exempt from that national narcissism that needs a mirror on every wall and a scale in every room, monitoring for an hourly check on weight gain or wrinkle formation the way a Day Trader checks his stocks every 15 minutes.
I actually know one or two people who DON’T think they’re overweight or out of shape. Course, they’re 80 plus years old and didn’t get brainwashed by TV commercials or fashion magazines, or … well, about everything that floods across the airwaves or through the mail or via the internet.
It’s a lot like living in Eternal High School where everyone is excluded from the Kool Kid Klub. Too overweight, too out of shape, too much gray hair, too many varicose veins. The pharmaceutical folks are making up non-caloric fats and artificial sweeteners. The medical industry will offer us Botox treatments and plastic surgery. There are 2500 diet plans known to the state of California … that work for 6 months. You can get hair transplants and you can get dye for the plugs.
Old age is not something we accept gracefully. And judging by every other ad in every media, old age starts at 30 or earlier. Course the next ad will sell us potato chips, pop, beer and fast food — sort of like selling oxycontin then advertising the rehab clinic.
I guess we’re just not comfortable in our own skins. Which are way too thin…. Unless you only see the fat. Or the varicose veins. If Zumba will toughen us up, okay then. Throw away the bathroom scales and break the mirrors. Go take a walk and read a book. You’re not going to be the Prom Queen or the Star Quarterback. It’s maybe time to really graduate from high school. Oh, and when you’re contacting those long lost sweethearts on Facebook, show them your actual photo. We all got a little older. Naturally….
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