The Olympics are hard to find...

I'm frustrated. I don't have cable right now because I can't afford it, so watching the Olympics has been almost impossible. I can find live streams, but those are usually happening when I'm at work. There are NO videos of things after the fact, at least, none that I can find. I have really wanted to watch fencing and the equestrian sports, and because it's not that popular, I haven't been able to find videos. I was able to find a video of the women's gymnastics, another sport I like. Sigh. It seems weird to me when corporations are able to determine when and how you get to see things that are supposed to be international, countries coming together to compete in a friendly way and put aside their differences. Apparently NBC is only showing delayed videos and nothing live. That's just weird.

Of course, the only gymnastics video I found was from an American station, so they're really focusing on the Americans and not on the other countries. I really wanted to see Canada compete, it's the first time they've gotten to the finals, apparently.

I do have to say, though, the Americans are so strong.

Anyway. Speaking of athletes, I read an article saying that a lot of people compare themselves to athletes when it comes to body image and weight loss, which is really not healthy. Athletes are special, not everyone on the planet is going to look like an athlete or be an athlete. They have to eat very specific foods, they train like crazy, they aren't just normal people on the street. Why do we put people on such pedestals and try to be like them instead of just being happy with who we are, what we have, and how we look? (This is more of a rhetorical question...I don't have an immediate answer, except - society and culture. Somewhere down the line someone really screwed it up for people, making image and looks one of the most important things in life, especially girls.)

This is a bit of a random post, and I apologize for that. I hope you are all able to catch the Olympics, unlike me!

1 comments:

  • Jack Draco | 03 August, 2012 10:45

    I'm not sure it's so much someone along the line screwing it up as it is genetic programming. The healthiest people are those most likely to survive, and their offspring are more likely to survive too. So it makes sense evolutionarily to be programmed to want to appear the same as the healthiest around us to increase our chances of procreation (and since sex produces the hormone oxytocin, which also triggers the emotion of love, it also increases our chances of "love" and "happiness".)

    Now the immediate flaw in this is that in the past more voluptuous figures of women were more desirable, but that actually just ties in closer to this because those periods of time had more widespread starvation. Thus, being "obese" was a sign of success and wealth, and thus healthiness (also supported by the fact that people who have BMIs identifying them as Overweight tend to live longer than those of Normal or Obese, the human frame was designed to carry a few extra pounds.) As we are in a world of Plenty (though it's so unevenly distributed that people are still starving despite there being plenty of food) our definition of healthy has shifted from someone who can afford to eat enough to be prepared for lean times to someone who can outrun a lion (despite there being no need to outrun lions).

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