The Truth About 'Beach Bodies'
You are probably very familiar with the term 'beach body'. Do a UK Google search and it will return 632,000 pages of information, the vast majority of which comprise of diets, exercise, tips and tricks that will help you achieve that elusive beach body that others will envy.
In addition to the internet, are countless magazines and newspaper articles which also promise (next to a flawless picture of a perfect looking model or celebrity) that you too could achieve amazing results.
I spent the last week on a sunny beach on in the Canary Islands. On a daily basis, I was surrounded by hundreds of semi naked (and occasionally completely naked) bodies of all nationalities, ages, shapes and sizes.
I saw people who were:-
- - Very tall, very short and all the heights
in between.
- Very thin, obese and all the weights in between.
- Ectomorphs, Endomorphs or Mesomorphs.
- Apple or Pears. - - Owners of very large breasts (natural) and
others who's were relatively small.
- Extremely wrinkled and others without a wrinkle in sight.
- Very fit, very unfit and all the fitness levels in between.
- Natural, cosmetically enhanced and all levels of beauty regimes in between.
- Black, white or a shade of brown.
- Genetically able to achieve the popularised beach body ideal and many many - more (99%) for whom it was an impossibility.
The main message that I took away was that we are all very different. The beach body that is promised by so many sources, is at best an illusion and at it's worst, deception based on commercial opportunism.