Gone are the days of desiring to look like rail thin models. We’ve worked hard as a society to make these changes, and we are finally seeing women looking up to other strong, powerful, fit women instead of the frail, bony, model type…. or so we hope.
Many women go on diets for the wrong reasons. They say, “I want to be skinny” or “I want to look like a model” but they don’t mention anything regarding improving their internal health, which should the most important thing. There’s such an overwhelming emphasis on physical appearance, and not enough attention on what really matters.
We all have that one tiny friend who can put down a whole meat lovers extra cheese pizza every day and still keep their petite shape. It doesn’t seem fair, but just because she’s skinny doesn’t mean she’s healthy. She may not have problems now, but later on her unhealthy lifestyle will catch up to her and she will be seeing some health problems down the road. If you embrace a lifestyle of regular, consistent healthy eating and exercising you have achieved much more than your skinny pizza eating friend and you should be proud of that. The focus should be on achievement and internal health, not physical appearance, which is where the “strong is the new skinny” movement comes into focus.
Women now are not concerned with looking like a supermodel but instead are aiming to be strong, put on muscle, and achieve an athlete’s body through proper training and fueling. Female athletes are in the limelight now more than ever, and an increasing amount of women are idolizing them instead of the women in magazines. The female body is being embraced for the powerful things it can do, not what it looks like. There is no more starving—food is fuel. There are no more gentle workouts for a fear of getting “bulky”—strong is sexy.
So jump on the bandwagon because it’s true, fit is the new skinny or in other words, healthy is the new skinny.
