Fit For Life: Cinderella was Skinny-Fat

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Matt Espeut, GoLocalProv Health +Lifestyle Contributor

 

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As Disney parades yet another princess movie before our children – girls and boys – what message are young people getting?  Ladies, if you want to be beautiful – no, if you want to be a PRINCESS – then be slim.  Be slimmer than slim – be skinny.  And even if you are super thin, wear a corset and suck it in to an unrealistic waist to body ratio.  Boys, you want to marry the princess?  Look for someone who looks like that.  I won’t even get into the victim as virtue messaging side of things, I’ll just talk about the super thin culture that women are surrounded with – all you have to do is watch an awards program – the Academy Awards, Emmys, whatever, and you’ll see it – super thin, and talking all about how they can’t wait to eat after the show.  Those who have anything on under their skin tight gowns will admit to wearing three layers of Spanx.  They’ve been dieting to fit into the extraordinarily tight gowns – and it shows.  Women who have had babies literally weeks before are now magically restored to Princess quality.  

The actress, Lily James, who plays Cinderella in the new movie, admitted to having to stay on a liquid diet to fit into the corset under her costumes, going on to say that if she ,“If you ate food, it didn’t really digest properly, and I’d be burping all afternoon…it was just really sort of unpleasant. I’d have soup so that I could still eat but it wouldn’t get stuck,” she said.  “The corset  pulled me [within an] inch of my life.”

Being overweight is unhealthy, but so is being unnaturally thin.  You are literally skinny-fat (as much as I don’t like the term ‘fat’).  If you are a woman, sized 4 and your arms and legs jiggle, because your skin is hanging off the bone, this can be you.  Your BMI can be very much like that of an overweight person, too.  So, too, can you have high cholesterol, be pre-diabetic, or, what I see most often, have mysterious food allergies and sensitivities.  Here’s how you probably got that way:

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*  You do too much cardio

*  You do not get enough rest

*  You do not do strength training

*  You starve yourself / cut calories 

*  You regularly are dehydrated

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Want to be a beautiful, healthy woman? 

To give you a simplified solution…

*  Lay off cardio & let your body heal.  Stop wasting valuable nutrients your body needs to gain muscle.

*  Strength train and building muscle will make you tone and fit and aesthetically more appealing.

*  Eat the proper amount of nutrients.  You cannot build muscle without the proper raw materials.

*  Rest. Your body cannot utilize nutrients and repair damaged cells without sleep.

*  Drink quality water and hydrate your body.

Now, carry that message to the children in your family.  It will help to raise empowered young women who value health as the measure of their beauty, first and foremost. And young men will value this too – opting for strength and health over insecure, unhealthy, look-obsessed princesses.

Matt Espeut, GoLocal's Health & Lifestyle Contributor has been a personal trainer and health & fitnesss consultant for over 25 years. He is the owner of Fitness Profiles, a one on one, and small group personal training company, as well as Providence Fit Body Boot Camp, located at 1284 North Main St., on the Providence/Pawtucket line. You can reach Matt at (401) 453-3200; on Facebook at "Matt Espeut", and on Twitter at @MattEspeut. "We’re all in this life together – let’s make it a healthy one!"

 

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