And congrats to you.
I believe most people don't even attempt it precisely because it's very well known those results are more often than not only attainable via a cocktail of drugs, some fucking
ridiculous dietary needs, and the sort of time (and budget for a trainer) that people simply don't have.
So that's why I said "it doesn't." Obviously that's a generalization, and a pretty broad one. But I think a lot of people basically realize they're not going to look like that unless they can buy that look, and people more often than not can't buy that look. Eating right costs money, unfortunately. It probably shouldn't, but it does. So people look at those results and just kinda go "welp."
If that look can inspire people to reach for a body type that is healthier, more attainable, and (most importantly) one that fits the person trying to get in shape, and makes them feel better about themselves, that's all good!
But I don't think a lot of people are looking at Zac Efron in Baywatch and doing much of anything but "Jesus
Christ that's fucking
unnerving."
Again: Congrats on achieving those goals, and continuing to work. That shit is impressive, and if you're proud of yourself, that pride is well-earned.
But I think the article, and the conversation springing from it, is basically a means to investigate further (as has been done for awhile now) how our media presents (largely) unattainable images to us as ideals, and how those ideals sour from aspirations to punishments.
I've never lived in a time where women haven't had to live with this horseshit hanging over them, and I'm pretty sure my mother and my sisters could easily say the same, and their mothers and sisters would if they were still here.
It's not wrong to want a great body, a great physique, to feel comfortable at the notion of taking your shirt off at the beach, to do something to combat the notion of shame at taking that shirt off. There is nothing at all wrong with that.
But there might be something a little skewed in suggesting it should be the norm for actors to present themselves as aspirational figures by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into a physical regimen that has them adhering to a physical ideal that people had to
literally draw into existence in the pages of a comic book because human bodies normally don't fuckin' work like that.
