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Skinny-Fat Is the New Black?
According to the New York Times, the "coolios" among us -- the first movers, the Influentials, the ones who get their fashion tips from celestial sources and force the less favored among us to play perpetual catch-up -- are fat.
Not obese, mind you. Just skinny at the ends and round in the middle. In the words of a magazine editor, the hipsters are "proudly rocking a gut."
The author, Guy Trebay, quotes his own trainer for this passage:
[A]s lean muscle and functionality become the new gym mantras, hypertrophied He-Men with grapefruit biceps and blister-pack abs have come to resemble specimens from a diorama of “A Vanished World.”
“When do you ever see that guy, anyway?” Mr. Morea asked, referring to those legendary Men’s Health cover models, with their rippling torsos and famished smiles. “The only time you really see that guy, he’s standing in front of an Abercrombie & Fitch store.” Perhaps, he suggested, there is really only one of them. “It’s the same guy. They just move him around.”
I was interviewed by the same author, writing for the same publication, back in 2000. Nine years ago, apparently, there was no shortage of camera-ready physiques:
At Jones Beach recently, there were enough supermanly specimens to give Charles Atlas the willies. Similarly at Fire Island Pines, the beach resembled a ''Gladiator'' casting call. Even at Robert Moses State Park -- never much of a muscle beach -- there was so much hypertrophy on display that most guys with ordinary physiques took refuge behind their Igloo coolers.
Granted, the goal of the 2000 article was to ask what price guys were willing to pay for that kind of body, and to point out how unnatural it was to achieve it. In the part where I'm quoted, I acknowledged that MH cover models are genetic outliers, although I didn't use that term:
"It's not necessarily an unreachable ideal. But it's an ideal."
So in nine years we've gone from a fear of freakiness to a celebration of fat. From telling guys who give it a shot that they've got a mental disorder to noting that today's men "can happily and guiltlessly go to seed."
Show of hands: Now that we all know it's cool to be corpulent, how many of us plan to give up our gym memberships and start building our gutfolios?
The Rundown
Lou Schuler is an award-winning fitness journalist and author. He began this weblog on menshealth.com in September 2003. If, for any reason, you need to know more about this middle-aged, bald-headed man, click here.
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Comments For This Entry
Posted by Gale Ebie at 06:41PM on August 18, 2009
I am one of the "skinny-fat" guys. Seven years ago I started my quest to lose 40 lbs of fat, it took almost two years. And yes it was ALL around my belly. If you figure adding 10 lbs of muscle (wild guess) then I lost 50 lbs of belly fat.
I worked way too hard to give it up for my "gutfolios"
Not only is my "skinny-fat" body type the most unhealthy, it is also the ugliest and most embarrassing. And I also quit reading anything the New York Times has to say as they always get it wrong. Since they say it hip to be fat, I am going to have to spend another hour at the gym tomorrow!
Posted by Odchudzanie Diety at 11:29PM on August 18, 2009
All this mass hysteria about being skinny as a skeleton is just a trend that will sooner or later be changed. Just like it was in the past - fashion is gaining followers, and nowadays fashion has powerful allies in shape of television, Internet, newspapers. So this is nothing to be afraid of. Of course being fat is not very healthy and human organism need balanced died and shape. But girls thinking that they are fat because they can't count all of their ribs or can't touch every bone in their body - that is something terrifying. The level of misunderstanding that this is just another modern myth leaves young girls with a believe in "always/everyday/forever" skinny models with no thoughts about photoshop shape improving work.
Posted by George Haberberger at 06:38AM on August 19, 2009
This "proudly rocking a gut" is supposed to be in opposition to President Obama? What? He's in such good shape the rest of shouldn't even try? I think Bush was healthier. His blood pressure was excellent, he ran a lot and he didn't smoke. Apparently, hippsters weren't aware of that.
Posted by Ryan J. Zielonka at 02:54PM on August 19, 2009
This could just be a reaction to the mounting levels of confusion regarding health and fitness. It was only yesterday low-carb diets were everywhere.
Now, so far as I can tell, today's go-to move is to hit the bathroom in the form of fasting/colon cleansing regimens.
Couple that with a Time magazine article telling people to stop exercising and undoubtedly people will start to say "**** it."
The industrial complex of the food industry, fitness industry, and medical establishment needs to integrate and start offering real solutions independent of financial gain.
That said, I'll keep my Men's Health cover model look, thank you very much.
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