Be fit, or fit in?

Why is it so important for people to look like someone else's idea of themselves? Why do we break ourselves to fit into a mould that does not belong to us?

We buy colours that are in fashion, whether we like them or not. We buy cars that go with an image created by some overpaid advertising company. We eat foods that the latest article says is the right thing to eat. We are proud that we have shunned the fetters of earlier societies, that today we have the liberty to choose to be as we will. We are free to wear, buy, and be what we want, right? Unfortunately, along with gaining the independence we prize, we seem to have the lost the ability to think and choose. Freedom of choice makes no sense if your choices are so tightly bound by the dikats of prevailing taste.

The Renaissance era paintings show full-figured women, sometimes with bulges along the waists. People say it was the 'fashion' then. I do not believe the artists were trying to delineate the trends (do artists ever?) The emphasis of pulchritude was in the poses, in the softness of expression. The allure of the portraits lies in the portrayal of comfort women had with their own bodies. Today, Barbie has made us about as plastic as herself. The impossible dimensions of the doll have become the ideal demented women to aim for - and even more insane men to expect!

The worst casualty of fashion has always been our bodies. From terrible physical trauma(running 10 miles five times a week) to sheer deprivation (pure liquid diets), we put ourselves through so much to fit into what some magazine has decided to be the look of the decade. As usual, my caveat again - if you really like to make the survival instinct of running a daily regimen - go right ahead. Enjoy the high that comes with it, but do not do it to look for something in the mirror. I love to swim. I enjoy the feel of water, and the buoyancy it gives me. I delight in the way it eases my breathing into a smooth rhythm. A few years ago, I decided I would watch the pounds fall off me too. And while I watched my weight and swam to lose those calories, I stopped enjoying my swims. It became a chore, a race with myself. I snapped myself back. I have not stepped on a weighing scale for ages now (except at the doctor's office, where I make it a point not to look at it). I do not know how much I weigh and I am very happy with how much ever it is.

One of the joys of life - eating - has been reduced to what is good for you and what it not. I have had to kick myself more times than I care to enumerate - before I could get myself out of 'this has antioxidants' rote before eating chocolates. I am not eating Swiss truffles for the antioxidants. I am eating it because I love them and because they taste great. I swear they taste better when I relish them for what they are.

Yes, we need to eat healthy, we need to eat well. It is good to add something salubrious to your daily victuals. But when we eat we should savor the food. Our diets are to nourish our bodies and to delight our palates, not medicate ourselves. Add the salad to your diet, but enjoy those fries too - at least while you still can. The physical body is going to deteriorate - whether you like it or not - whether you postpone it for another decade - there will come a time when it will disintegrate. Enjoy the candy while you have your natural teeth. And yes, brush and floss too.

Even though it is women who are more susceptible to the changing fashions of what 'you - must -be -like', men have had their share of distress. One has to be tall, and have a full head of hair (or none at all). One has to have a certain number of well-defined abdominal muscles to be considered 'fit'. Though 'fit' and 'cool' are so often interchangeable today that it becomes difficult to see what one is actually aiming for.

My husband is fixated on his belt. He moves back to tightening it and he thinks he has conquered the world. He tells me this with a shine in his eyes he has never had when I look my best! It is good to loose the extra weight that is deleterious to your well-being, but do not lose equilibrium in the process. Keep sight of what is important in life too.

As long as the body looks good, it hardly matters what is inside that head. And it hardly matters why you do what you do - as long as it gets you the right car. I was shocked when I realised that a certain type of person is expected to drive a particular kind of car. I can understand the love for a car - or to even buy a car for its value on the 'cool' meter. But to have one because 'it is what we look good in' or because it apparently says something about you is downright ridiculous. The only thing it says my dears, is that you do not have an iota of sense, or self-respect. My choice of car is dictated by what I need and what I can afford. Period. I wish I had the money to buy a helicopter. But I hope I would have enough sense not to buy it even then. I guess I can afford a Mercedes - but I am so happy with my Camry - I see no reason to buy another brand. So my second car is - yes - a newer Camry! I was told our family is the 'Lexus' kind. Apparently college-going kids should have two-seaters or convertibles. Why? And everyone should have at least a Blackberry. Again, why? My husband's Blackberry Storm only makes his work day interminable. But I can see he needs it. I do not. And the 11th grader certainly does not, however fancy he thinks it makes him.

One friend of mine went straight from 'close' to 'avoidable' when she did not buy what she herself called a 'perfect car at the right price' because it was silver and silver was so 'yesterday'. Good God! It is a COLOUR! How shallow can one get? She is a nice lady, in may ways a better person that I can ever be, but superficiality is something I have never been able to deal with. The infuriating part was that she left a chance a help out a friend with he commission he would have made on that great deal he was getting her (in these times!). Coincidentally this is the same friend who spoke of nothing but the state of her diet EVERY TIME we met! It is tiresome to hear a litany of foods one had ingested which one, apparently, should not have.

So, my very dear readers, look within yourself and look for what you want ,what you need-and go for it. Do not make yourself as two-dimensional as those lovely and meaningless magazine pictures! George D. Prenctice put it very succinctly when he said ' What we call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease'.