Magazine Covers Putting the Faux in Fitness

Can someone please tell me which cover is worse?

Is it the Shape cover featuring Audrina Patridge, who is perhaps best known for hawking Carl’s Jr. burgers that she pretty clearly doesn't eat, and who appears to have lost the entire right side of her body to the Photoshop bandit?

Or is it the Seventeen issue with Nina Dobrev, because it’s a publication telling 12-year-olds how to acquire a rockin’ bikini body? (Let’s not even get into the missing chunk of her torso.)

I can’t decide, see, because I started trying to figure out why these magazines ostensibly devoted to fitness couldn’t find someone with serious muscle definition to put on the cover, and then I looked up how many professional women’s athletic leagues exist in the US, and then I learned there are more than 170,000 women playing college sports, and then I thought about Jillian Michaels and Glee’s professional dancer/actor Heather Morris (both of whom are famous enough to have landed magazine covers recently) and, for that matter, the women on Dancing with the Stars, and that I would consider any of them a more compelling fitness role model than Lauren Conrad’s neighbor from The Hills, and then I tried to figure out why major media outlets would forgo women like that in favor of these two as the best examples of a healthy lifestyle, and I realized--of course!--it has more to do with newsstand sales than actual fitness, and that’s more or less when my brain exploded.

Comments

[London Cleaners]

I don't know witch one is worst, but I am always talking with my girl explaining her that the covers are supposed to be pretty and show her for example Jen Anniston without make-up. So we can't fight with this covers but as long as we are parents we can educate our kids, and remember the lessons sometimes when we feel a little fat around the waist.

[ironmaster dumbbells]

I think that they are targeting young audience, that's why they have this two skinny looking girls. It doesn't promote health and fitness but the opposite- young girls should be skinny. I agree with the previous comment that it will be up to us as a parent to educate our kids what is right and what is wrong.

[Ann]

The Shape cover is particularly disturbing to me. She looks scary skinny. I have struggled with eating disorders since my early teens. So did my mother and grandmother. I have tried so hard to raise my daughter to be a strong, healthy girl with a good body image. She's certainly in a better place than I was at 18, but it has been very difficult in the current magazine/media climate. This is bad enough with fashion magazines, but for magazines that purport to be about fitness I think the covers are appalling.

Magazines have always been a vehicle to sell us products and I have always known that. But even though I could never measure up to Christie Brinkley or Cheryl Tiegs, at least they were healthy, beautiful women with pores. There is no way anyone looks like the post-photoshop covers.

I have a love/hate relationship with the magazines. I love fashion, but every time I buy one I feel guilty about supporting the garbage they have become. I’m so glad to see you posting again, your blog is one of my favorites.

[Sara]

I too understand the marketing mentality behind many a magazine covers but Audrina on Shape was particularly upsetting. I bough the magazine but wouldn't bother to do her workout because I don't consider her body to be one to emulate. Fake rack, skinny with little muscle tone? Huh? The only person I can imagine being worse would be Paris Hilton.

[SsS]

I like fashion mags, but I can't stomach the women's "fitness" mags at all. Someone bought my FIL a subscription to Men's Muscle and Fitness and reading it really made me aware of how terribly sex-typed the women's mags are. Every article in 'Shape' and 'Women's Health' is framed in a fear based, shaming way (do/don't, should/shouldn't, good/bad, right/wrong) whereas the men's mag presents the information in a straightforward manner. I prefer reading the men's fitness mag now because it doesn't assume that I am an insecure airhead and frankly the tips I have gleaned from them have helped me get the best body of my life. Go figure.

[Lindora]

Oh, It's a common practice for glam media to use fake pics for the illustrations. They are all fake! Did you know it? All model pictures are getting photoshoped during fotoshoot post-processing. They remove "excess" fat, cellulite, uneven skin, spots, dots etc. An what we have at the end? Fake plastic dolls! Oops:)

[Rezza]

It's a common practice for glam media to use fake pics for the illustrations.

[supra shoes]

tice for glam media to use fake pics for the illustrations. They are all fake! Did you know it? All model pictures are getting photoshoped during fotoshoot post-processing. They remove "excess" fat, cellulite, uneven skin, spots, do

[John Lewis]

I agree with supra with body fixing tools like adobe anyone can have a super hot body. We should make our kids understand that

[Bellaplex]

They have perfec bodies and the skin looks in very good condition. Hope it is not photoshop.