“It’s odd now, in light of all we know about the health impact of smoking, to think about a positive connection between sports and cigarettes. But that wasn’t always the case, especially for women. Both smoking and being physically active were hallmarks of the independent woman. Yes, smoking’s allure was partly about weight loss but it was also about women’s new found autonomy, careers, and education.
According to the Center for Disease Control, “Tobacco advertising geared toward women began in the 1920s. By the mid-1930s, cigarette advertisements targeting women were becoming so commonplace that one advertisement for the mentholated Spud brand had the caption “To read the advertisements these days, a fellow’d think the pretty girls do all the smoking.” As early as the 1920s, tobacco advertising geared toward women included messages such as “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” to establish an association between smoking and slimness. The positioning of Lucky Strike as an aid to weight control led to a greater than 300% increase in sales for this brand in the first year of the advertising campaign.”
Now these 1887 cigarette cards predate these advertising campaigns. But I still love the imagery, smoking aside.
USA Hockey ran the following Twitter campaign to promote girls hockey and there were, as you might expect, some criticism. We shared the controversy here.
I loved some of the alternatives that people shared on Twitter.
do a jillion squats/crunches/pullups/pushups/dips– whatever your pleasure;
perfect our posture (that was a new one for me);
and the list goes on…
A veritable buffet of 30-day programs, all dedicated to change you from head to toe. Allegedly.
30 also figures prominently in self-improvement programs, as 30 minutes seems to be the magical amount of time needed per day in order for complete and total transformation from shapeless, hapless, and amoeboid to ship-shape, sharp, and sure of ourselves.
In 30 minutes a day, you can get better health, fitness, grammar, intelligence, and even reverse aging. Allegedly.
What is it about 30? Is it true that we really need to do something 30 minutes a day for 30 days in order:
for us to see any results?
for it to be worth our time/money/effort?
for anything to happen at all?
What if, some days, we only do 15 minutes of whatever feat we are attempting (be it plank holding or meditation or watching Russian language videos)? Or 10? or 5? Is it all for nothing?
found that inactive older adults who added just 48 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week lowered their risk of major disability compared with sedentary people.
Wait, there’s more:
Another study, published in the January 2018 American Journal of Preventive Medicine, involved almost 140,000 older adults, average age 71, almost half of whom were men. It showed that doing moderate-intensity workouts totaling less than 150 minutes per week still was enough exercise to lower the risk of early death when compared with inactivity.
30 really isn’t a magic number. We don’t have to do something 30 days in a row for it to be meaningful, and we don’t have to spend 30 minutes a day doing it for it to count. Every day we devote to whatever activities that figure in our goals– physical, intellectual, creative, philanthropic, gastronomic, you name it– counts. And every minute counts, too.
In case you prefer a diagrammatic explanation, here’s one:
The number line. Positive numbers are all those to the right of zero. And they all count.
Readers: do you feel like you need 30 minutes a day in order to get up and running (as it were) in a new activity? Does doing a few minutes a day here and there suffice? I’d love to hear about your experiences with 30/less-than-30 programs.
Because despite the stereotypes, you don’t need to be stick thin to be a cyclist yet it can be challenging finding clothes that fit. I keep saying to people who say they’ll ride bikes (or go hiking and camping) AFTER they’ve lost weight, that there is no need to wait. Do it now! Yet, the message you get shopping for clothes and gear is that as a larger person this activity isn’t for you.
I’ll have more to say about this in the future. It’s a theme of mine! But for now I want to just take a moment and applaud two recent success stories:
“Diverse populations of women are featured on the brand’s Lookbooks and bibs and jerseys come in a variety of sizes to fit a wide-range of body types. Representation and inclusivity matter to Machines for Freedom and it’s abundantly clear that it’s important to the company ethos.
“I really wanted to change what this sport looked like and to create space for difference and individuality in a sport that values uniformity,” says Kriske. “When we launched, I was very deep into training, often riding 20-plus hours a week and treating it like a part-time job. Yet, I felt like I didn’t fit in, all because I was a curvy woman who valued life and relationships rather than just talking about gear ratios or what new bike I was lusting after. I saw the industry as very flat and superficial, and tailored to folks who ascribed to a very specific, and elite, lifestyle. I wanted to change that, to draw more people in.”
Kriske believes that the sport of cycling has much more to offer riders than tech specs and racing. “There is so much joy, adventure, and confidence that comes from adventuring on a bike. When it comes to storytelling, that is our NorthStar and it’s what has been driving us to broaden our community year after year.”
“Over the last few decades, the outdoor gear industry made innovation after innovation in product designs. Jackets are now waterproof yet surprisingly breathable, tents are so impressively lightweight one might mistake the aluminum poles for bird bones. But you still can’t buy a plus-size hiking backpack.
“When I think about it too much, I get really angry about it,” Jenny Bruso, the self-described queer, fat, femme writer and hiker behind the popular Instagram account Unlikely Hikers told Business Insider.
That’s why backpack maker Gregory’s announcement that they’re releasing the industry’s first line of plus-size backpacks in Spring 2021 is such big news. Finally, hikers and travelers will have size-inclusive backpacks that reflect the diversity of their bodies. And Bruso, whose frustrations with the industry is a driving force behind her activism within it, is partnering with Gregory to develop the line. The release will include more than 20 different plus-size packs across the day hiking, multi-day backpacking, hydration and lifestyle categories.”
That peloton ad has had its day and there’s not a lot new to add. I’m glad Monica Ruiz, the lead in the ad, is getting a chance to start over. And I learned a new descriptor, “sad eyebrows.”
Oh, did you miss it? Here’s the story. And here’s the ad itself.
Is it a bad ad? Is it creepy? Is it more like a trailer for Black Mirror than an ad for a spin bike? Should you give your spouse exercise equipment for the holidays? Was she just a little too worried about what her husband thinks? Was she too thankful for the gift? I’m going to leave all those questions alone. But I was shocked by the number of commentators who focused in on the Peloton wife’s weight.
“Peloton’s viral ad captures a ‘116 lb woman’s YEARLONG fitness journey to becoming a 112 lb woman’” screamed commentators. See Marketwatch on the controversy.
So many of the complaints focused on the fact that she was already fit, by which they mean thin. This isn’t fair to fat but fit people. This isn’t fair to thin people who often aren’t encouraged to exercise because they’re thin even though you can be thin but very out of shape . See How equating being fat with being out of shape hurts thin people too.
Frankly I was relieved that it wasn’t an ad about a fat wife getting an exercise bike and her year long weight loss journey. Phew.
We need to break the connection between thinness and fitness. There was lots wrong with the ad but the fact that the gift receiver was already thin had nothing to do with it.
I was reminded of that piece when this article came across my feed describing how UNICEF, the United Nations children’s fund has developed a tracker that allows kids to feed other children when they reach certain step goals.
I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.
North American kids — largely affluent, well fed, and probably mostly white — are being told use this tracker and you will feed the poor somewhere else.
You can’t escape the irony here; the colonialist, patriarchally coated irony of having privileged kids walking their walk to good works.
Images shows young white female-presenting child looking at a quarter cupcake on a plate. Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
Article author Angela Lashbrooks says this about the idea: A punitive or even rewards-based system to encourage young people to move more won’t be effective in the mid or long term, and could cause or worsen obsessive thoughts and behaviors in some kids.
That’s because there isn’t a lot of good evidence showing trackers work with kids and teens:
One 2019 study found that teenage subjects actually became less likely to engage in moderate or vigorous physical activity after five weeks of wearing a Fitbit. It suggested that the tracker appeared to weaken the inherent motivation and self-determination needed to compel kids to be active. Another study, from 2017, saw similar results: After an initial surge in interest in exercise spanning a few weeks, the kids mostly stopped engaging with the trackers and actively resisted them, claiming that they were inaccurate and therefore not trustworthy.
While our kids on this continent are mostly sedentary and we should be concerned with the amount of screen time they engage in, getting kids to wear trackers and get their fitness on by appealing to an altruistic goal is problematic.
Kids follow what they see. Kids also know when they are being gamed. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up on Christmas morning and discover a tracker under the tree. Given all the negative messages we send out about size and what fitness looks like, I can see the thought processes now:
Parental units gave me a tracker! Trackers are used by people who want to lose weight. Parents must think I need to lose weight. Parents must think I am fat. Fat people are ugly. Parents must think I am ugly. Parents won’t love me if I’m fat. Parents won’t love me anymore if I don’t lose weight. …
Unless a tracker is something the child has spontaneously on their own expressed an interest in, there are better ways to get your kid engaged in fitness than planting this kind of non-gift under the tree.
If you want to focus on a healthier, more active lifestyle, buy swim passes for everyone. Or sign them up for that bike repair workshop so they can fix their bikes on their own. Or plot walking routes in your community and track the steps as a world wide adventure.
If social action is on your list of things, then talk as a family about supporting community agencies who help vulnerable kids and families throughout the year and not just in holiday season. This article offers some great insights into why giving should be a daily thing and not a holiday one-off.
Gifts that focus on self-improvement aren’t really gifts in my opinion. They are projections of your own desires. How about you? What do you think would be more appropriate for gift giving?
MarthaFitat55 is not a fan of self-improvement gifts for any occasion. She gets her fit on through walking, swimming, yoga and powerlifting. But not all at once.
Did you know that the FIFA Women’s World Cup is happening right now, in France, from June 7th to July 7th?
The latest Nike ad, released on the eve of the women’s World Cup of Soccer, is a heart-pumping, rousing ad that celebrates women’s soccer through the eyes of a child with an exciting dream. As the article “Nike’s New Ad Is a Celebration of Badass Women’s Soccer Players, and We’re Studying Up” says: “The commercial is a who’s who of talented women’s soccer players, from the United States’ Crystal Dunn to Brazil’s Andressa Alves, introducing you to the stars you’ll see in the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup. The real star of the show, though, is Makena Cooke, a 10-year-old soccer player from California.”
In the 3:00 commercial, we follow Makena Cooke running, kicking, falling, cheering, and even scoring alongside the very best of the FIFA women’s World Cup soccer rosters from all over the world. It’s an exciting ad that is sure to lift your spirit.
It might make you want to watch the world-class women’s soccer that the World Cup has to offer. It might make you want to kick a ball around yourself. It might make you want to cry (a few people reported that it made them emotional).
Whatever it might make you want to do, here it is.
We haven’t shared the new Nike women’s sports ad on the blog–much as we love almost all of it–because we’ve been nervous about the “crazy talk.” The “Dream Crazier” ad for the “Just Do It” campaign features women throughout history breaking down barriers in sports. The commercial, narrated by Serena Williams and featuring an all-female cast, shows women in sports ranging from running to tennis to boxing being celebrated for their passion. And that’s terrific, right? Mostly yes but it’s complicated.
The ad lists the ways in which women have been called crazy for wanting to participate in sports. It’s a long list. But instead of criticizing the use of crazy-talk as ableist the ad tries to take back the language of “crazy.” It urges women to be crazier.
Sometimes reclaiming language is a good thing but I am not sure it works here. Why? See my older post Let’s Stop the Crazy Talk .
“Disability metaphors abound in our culture, and they exist almost entirely as pejoratives. You see something wrong? Compare it to a disabled body or mind: Paralyzed. Lame. Crippled. Schizophrenic. Diseased. Sick. Want to launch an insult? The words are seemingly endless: Deaf. Dumb. Blind. Idiot. Moron. Imbecile. Crazy. Insane. Retard. Lunatic. Psycho. Spaz.
I see these terms everywhere: in comment threads on major news stories, on social justice sites, in everyday speech. These words seem so “natural” to people that they go uncorrected a great deal of the time. I tend to remark on this kind of speech wherever I see it. In some very rare places, my critique is welcome. In most places, it is not.”
What do you think of the ad? Of using “crazy” as metaphor?
Health Canada released its long awaited update to its food guide this week and the response has been swift. Overall I quite like it, and I wrote about it here in my bi-weekly column. The old food guide was prescriptive (eat something from these four food groups and here’s how much). The new food guide is much more aspirational and as I wrote, it reflects diversity in food choice and food culture.
I thought I would pull together a bunch of responses to the guide in this post. The Globe and Mail has several pieces I liked, with the first from one from Andre Picard, the Globe’s health reporter, in which he looks at food insecurity and the food guide’s recommendations. Leslie Beck, the Globe’s dietitian commentator, offers up her thanks for Health Canada’s building a guide on science while Ann Hui also of the Globe and Mail, provides a good overview of the key changes here.
Cassandra Lszklarski from the Canadian Press focuses on the guide’s position on alcohol. Health Canada has stepped away from recommending milk as the preferred beverage and tells us to drink more water. At the same time, it is also came out strongly against alcohol consumption (non drinkers shouldn’t start for example). Previous guides highlighted the sugar and calories in alcohol, but this version talks about the links between alcohol and obesity, cancer, and addiction.
Yoni Freedhoff looks at the implications for institutional change. On Weighty Matters, Freedhoff’s blog, he wrote how the new food guide is a radical departure from previous more modest iterations:
“Whether it was consequent to past criticisms, or the insulation of the revision process from the food industry, or a change in leadership, or some combination of those and more factors, the 2019 Food Guide is incredibly different from all of its predecessors. Gone is dairy as its own food group (that doesn’t mean the guide is recommending against dairy consumption), gone is wishy-washy language that excused refined grains, gone are explicit recommendations to consume 2 glasses of milk and 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oils daily, gone is overarching fat-phobia, gone is juice being a fruit and vegetable equivalent, gone is the notion that sugar-sweetened milk is a health food, and gone is an antiquated nutrient-focused approach.”
Freedhoff also talks about what to do next, now that the food guide is out without its dependence on food-based marketing recommendations. In this post, he looks at what needs to change for good healthy food policy to happen. Freedhoff describes them as hills but they include removal of fast food from schools, a national school food policy, a ban on food marketing to children, implementation of a soda tax, removal of front of package claims, and an overhaul of supplement regulation.
The food insecurity issue is one that I will be looking at in the future, but in the meantime, I am excited by the new food guide and what it means for reflecting diversity and health on my plate.
What do you think? How important has the food guide been in managing your nutritional needs? What do you like or dislike about Health Canada’s guide?
— Martha Muzychka is a writer living in St. John’s who swims, lifts and walks as much as she can.
That’s what a friend said when this ad appeared in her Facebook newsfeed.
She’s a boxer so the targeted ad sort of makes sense.
Except not. Her words: “What even is this?” Boxing gloves for women who want to protect their manicures.
I can’t imagine her getting her nails done and needing her boxing gloves to accommodate that. I mean, there aren’t many women who box and I’d guess there’s an even smaller number who box and who get fancy fingernails.
