How to be 'built good'
Practically every magazine we pick up these days features America's love affair with "physical fitness," while our head medical person says the number one health problem in America is overweight people. The average person doesn't know which way to turn… or bend. Eating, dieting and exercising have apparently become national commercial phobias, competing for our money and attention.
Look at those guys and gals in the slick fashion ads. Don't those designers know there are millions of God fearing, clothes wearing Americans out there who are not training for the Miss America Pageant or the next Olympics?
For those who truly aspire to be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Victoria Principal, there are aerobic classes, health spas and dieting clubs, racquetball, tennis, handball and weight lifting; and there are home training classes on radio and TV, along with a billion-dollar business in home exercise equipment ranging from a pair of cheap dumbbells to million dollar gyms. Each year more books are published like the Jane Fonda type fitness books. They are written by sleek and/or muscular celebrities who usually have their own trainer and private workout space. Many of those books spend weeks on the bestseller lists. Who knows how or why? Maybe people eat them.
In the meantime, what is the second biggest growth business in America? That must be the "making life a little easier industry." This era really started gaining momentum after WWII, with the promotion of thousands of New York savers such as power steering for cars, the electric shoe polisher, automatic can and garage door openers, and microwaves. Am aware of these things because I'm of an age to remember when people had to crank cars, slice their own bread, hand saw fire wood and cut lawns with a push mower. Didn't have a "remote control" because we didn't have TV. The Yuppie generation probably found it difficult to imagine a world where human life was sustained without Velcro, duct tape and hand-held blow dryers.
The way I've got it figured out is that for every labor-saving device man invents, the Lord gives us inspiration for a new kind of exercise. For example: In the olden days on mornings after a big snow, we would have to shovel, sometimes for hours, to clear walks and driveway. Now we've got power snow blowers which enable us to get done in about 10 minutes so we can get out the skis or snowshoes for a few hours of making up the exercise missed by not shoveling snow.
Same way with the American women. They have power vacuum cleaners that run around slurpin' up all the dirt, automatic dishwashers, clothes dryers, no-iron clothes and self-cleaning ovens. These "work savers" enable them to have time for aerobic dance classes. Over the last several years the line between what is "men's work" and what is "women's work" has blurred so any labor saving device, either at work or in the home, enables someone of some sex to have more time for non-physical work, thus requiring more exercise.
Both sexes in all income brackets are being affected by time and work saving devices but many haven't the money for golf or swimming lessons so they wind up having more sex. While this activity seems to be a popular form of exercise in both the work place and the home, as well as viewer sport for TV and modern movies, it produces side affects which are causing funding problems in many school districts, especially urban areas. At all financial and social levels, we can see things out of balance.
Maybe I should start a personal revolt against this madness by laboriously writing my column in long hand on a legal pad and then making the final draft on the old manual typewriter like I did when this thing started back in 1962. In those days, I weighed 175 pounds and had a 32-inch waist. Now it's a fancy computer run by a 190 pounder who's __ inches around the middle.
On the other hand, I did pay money for this computer and it certainly is easier and faster to write with. My fingers haven't gotten fatter. Perhaps I should keep doing the column the new way then work out for a few minutes afterward on one of those "skinny ninny" rowing machines. Yeah! That's the plan, sorta "Go with the flow," and if I don't lose a few pounds, it doesn't matter much. When all is said and done, I would rather be known for good healthy writing than for having a "build" like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and Hungry Horse News columnist.