I don't know what you think about the importance of being healthy- within the right BMI range, not smoking, and drinking, and generally taking care to maximize your overall balance. Though I sympathize with the importance of these pursuits I do feel there is an over emphasis on their importance, and a rebellious pull away from them.
Rather, the world we live in demands both, making a reconciliation of contradictions near impossible. For instance, I am told by the media: eat, buy, indulge in luxury. I am then told by the public that this is: gluttony, laziness, weakness. The media sometimes overlaps what is said in public and reinforces the importance of health. This contemporary phenomena is complicated, because they walk the fine line, saying: you can eat and indulge in luxury while still being healthy. So you have a paradigm now of voices telling you ways in which to best pursue your life! Another perspective is one carried by feminists, they claim that Fat is Beautiful. In this perspective doctors are believed to have overemphasized the down sides to being overweight, arguing that there is not enough convincing data that heart problems and cholesterol is caused by being overweight, and that genetics plays a big role in these matters. Basically, fat being unhealthy is an assumption.
Far from being scientific enough to know whether this is accurate or not, I placed it in this blog as a counter to those who hold true that health should be the only pursuit one follows. To indicate the complexity of any and every issue.
Thus it is important that I state that I don't know if i adhere to any of these perspectives completely. I am a rather simple person when it comes to food: I eat what I like. Though this form of hedonism is ridiculous, I am going to make the claim that not drinking any coffee, or tea, excersizing an hour a day everyday, sleeping at 10 to wake up at 6 to jog, and get all those hours in, avoiding all forms of harm is also ridiculous.
Destruction is a part of nature, we cannot control how the world manifests itself. My aunt who is in perfect shape got cancer five years ago, my mother who like me is not in perfect shape, also got sick three years later. Life is unpredictable and many elements play a role in determining the outcome. To focus only on health is to deny oneself of the ability to view things from a more holistic perspective. So I will eat that salad because its healthy and I like salads, but I will also have my cup of Joe in the morning so that the day is a little brighter. Because we all know how hard it is to get through the day. I might go overboard one day, and underboard another, but I'm happy being me in general, why the consistent pursuit of perfection, when beauty is in the imperfect. (Think Black Swan)
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I'm not even taking into consideration the complications of body image and the psychology and sociology of how emphasizing on HEALTH can actually damage a persons spirit. I'll leave that for other posts! : )
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