MICHELE MOULTON: ‘Ideal’ body type is not necessarily ‘picture perfect’

My husband is a cycling coach and uses a training program called “Training Peaks” to create workouts for his clients. He receives lots of good information and insightful articles through his affiliation with the program. Kent showed me a very interesting article that Training Peaks posted on body image, and it really hit home.

Body image refers to a person’s feelings of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body that may be forced by others or social media. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his book “The Image and Appearance of the Human Body” (1935).

Why do we worry so much about body image? I mean, at the end of the day, who really cares what everyone else thinks?

It would be nice to honestly say that I don’t worry about body image, but I can’t. I don’t know if any of us can. Everyone wants to feel good about themselves and how they look. It is extremely difficult for people to live up to the standards of society and what they believe the ideal body is.

I spend a lot of time in the gym. Now we’re really talking about an environment full of body image worrywarts. I find myself checking everyone out … not in a sexual way at all. It goes more like this — “Check out his arms. They are jacked!” or “Look at how ripped her abs are. I wonder what she eats?” You know you do the same thing when you are in the gym.

My gym buddies, Rachel and Grace, are always playing the body image game with me. Rachel is a lot like me. She is in her early 40s and has had two boys. Grace, on the other hand, is only in her late 20s and hasn’t had any kids. Yet, we all have the same struggles.

We get up way too early to get a workout in; we go to the gym more than once a day because we are a little crazy like that; we complain about our abs (or lack thereof); we complain about our gluteus maximus and how we want ours to look like the airbrushed models we see in the latest health and fitness magazines; we complain about being tired (Go figure!); we try to eat right and then say to heck with it and splurge over the weekend … only to face the 5 a.m. alarm on Monday waking us up for our next early morning workout.

Will we ever just be happy with how we look?

Unfortunately, the struggle with body image does not discriminate. Women deal with it. Men deal with it. I’ve heard young male athletes in the gym complain about “being too small.” And it seems as though no matter how hard you try to improve your body image, it’s never enough. Even when a goal is met, you still want more. Enter greed. And addiction. It can be an ugly cycle that never ends.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

What is your ideal body image?

As a little girl, I played with Barbie dolls. You might be wondering about the connection between Barbie and body image. Well, the average American girl between the ages of 3 to 11 owns 10 Barbie dolls. The average American girl grows up surrounded by the Barbie body image. If Barbie were a real woman, she would be 5 foot 6 and weigh 120 pounds. Her measurements would be 38-18-34. The average woman’s measurements, on the other hand, are about 41-34-43.

Luckily, I’ve never had a desire to look like Barbie. I remember watching Florence Griffith-Joyner in the Olympics. Barbie wouldn’t stand a chance against Flo Jo. Flo Jo had those chiseled thighs and ripped abs. I’d take those over Barbie’s 18-inch waist any day.

Athletes tend to shape their ideal body image around the body that will excel at their chosen sport. As a cyclist, I need strong legs. I love lower body workouts, Butts ‘n’ Guts classes, riding my bike, running … anything that will help shape and mold my legs into the shapely machines that I want them to be. I am the director of the local race team, a group of 10-12 really fast guys in spandex. I also train with them, and I am often the only girl out there on our training rides. I want to be fast on the bike, but I really want some nice legs. And a nice behind. And a six pack. Is that really too much to ask for?

“If you want to run as fast as the men, you’ve got to train like the men” — Florence Griffith-Joyner

How much effort are you willing to put into reaching your goal?

If you are Average Joe with a family and full-time job, then it is very hard to put as much time into reaching your goals as you may want. We have to be very efficient with our time, but we also have to understand that we aren’t professional athletes who get paid to stay in shape and look good.

Diet plays a huge role in shaping our ideal body image, but it is just so hard to eat clean all the time! “Honey, we can stay home and have scrambled egg whites and chicken, or we can go to Harvest Moon for drinks and pizza.” We have all been faced with that dilemma, and it doesn’t take much to persuade us to jump in the car. Fast forward two hours and the guilt kicks in because we made the “wrong” decision. Wrong by whose standards?

We are often brainwashed into believing that those perfect bodies that we see in the media never eat a morsel of fat, never miss a workout and feel wonderful about themselves all day, every day. I call baloney on that. They have “fat days” just like everyone else. We’re all human.

Don’t beat yourself up when you make a poor choice. Life isn’t about ideal body images, dieting and exercise. Be happy with you. You never know … you may be someone’s ideal body image.

Michele Moulton is a certified group fitness, boot camp, TRX and Spinning instructor with more than 23 years of experience in the health and fitness industry. She is the lead instructor at Impact Sports and Fitness. She also is the mother of two boys, Austin and Harrison.