Fife Free Press, January 9, 1997
A million words must
be written every year about the commercialisation of Christmas; how
the true meaning has been lost and how the civilised world has waited
too long to put Christ back where X (mas) now marks the spot.
But still we
not-so-merrily spend, spend and spend. And the festive season reigns
supreme in the drinking stakes when it seems every day from the
office party in mid-December until the last dregs of the cooking
sherry is drained somewhere in mid-January is an excuse to wipe the
gitters off your kilt and have a dram.
But while religious
tradition has been usurped by shopping, presents, food and firewater,
up until recently one tradition remained, ‘The Aftermath’.
It brings the
depression and worry of strained finances, the huge anti-climax of
waking up to weary January after a month of celebrating, the gloom of
a long, hard winter ahead with only the holiday brochures to offer
some psychological ray of future sunshine.
But now, even that
accustomed and comfortable ritual of self-pity and loathing has been
violated by a new phenomenon. No sooner has the last scraping of
out-of-date brandy butter been tossed into the bin liner than the
grinning faces of the super-fit, super-healthy, super-vivacious and
super-enthusiastic hit the TV screens, the newspapers and the
magazines.
Yes, Anthea Turner
and her ilk want you to haul your carcass out of the armchair and
strain your cardio-vascular system even more than the richest plum
duff.
Now, I'm all for
being all you can be but I remain convinced the good old New Year
resolution to be that bit more sensible in the weeks ahead is a whole
lot more effective than the lithe icons promoted by the media.
I for one do not
want to be like Anthea Turner. I do not want to be like Mr Motivator,
Rosemary Conley, Beverly Callard etc.
The thought of a
nation of podgy, post-Christmas bodies, straining the gussets of
Lycra leotards is enough to make me hit the bottle with a vengeance.
It is a nightmarish scenario. The paradox is that all the people
telling you what to do, how to eat, how to give your hair that
perfect shine, already have it all.
To get me into
action, I need a role model who is in worse shape than I am; I need
the Bernard Manning workout to gradually ease the sloth out of my
soul.
So for all of you
who are tottering on the brink of the abyss of aeorobic purgatory, I
ask you to consider if you will ever be transformed into Anthea and
do you want to be?
Will your body ever
be a marketable commodity? The fact is there is a heap of humanity
out there with taut buttocks and sweatbands desperate to get you to
buy their column/book/video/tape, but there is only one you.
And we are every
ounce, pound, stone and hundredweight as good as them, spare tyres
and all.
If we want to
change, then change ourselves, don't try and become someone else. And
the saddest thing is, we all already know how to do it, simple common
sense.
If Anthea Turner
really is the answer then would someone please run the question by me
again?
Good health is one
thing but telling the world and its mother how ugly/fat/unfit they
are just has to be another marketing ploy; it is worse than making
money out of someone's misery because the bodies-fantastic have to
make you miserable first!
Oh to have dreich
January back again. I already know the shape I'm in and I do intend
to do something about it but lettuce, leotards and a cabbage head
don't figure in the long-term plan for healthy living.
They say “it's
your meat that makes you bonny” so, if that's the case, then I'm
drop-dead gorgeous already.
Picture: Ryan McGuire
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