“To Fatback with Love”

Recently I read an interesting internet article titled “Women, bikinis and Serena Williams.”  It was written by a woman and began with a highlight caption asking the question of what’s causing young women to still feel so bad about their bodies.

The author shared how this summertime beach season is wrecking havoc with another generation of young women who are consumed with dreadful fears of being seen wearing a bikini in public.

For example, a recent survey asked 1,000 millennial women how they view their bodies and whether they were happy with their body appearance.  A staggering 80 percent of respondents revealed how they avoid public activities because they feel self-conscious about their shape.

Blog space here at Pierini Fitness doesn’t allow me ample room to present the Ph.D. dissertation required to adequately discuss the reasons for this.  It’s fair to say that social media websites bombarded with selfie-photos of young and beautiful people allow for far too much mine versus yours body-image comparisons by these troubled damsels in distress.

Mean-spirited comments delivered by anonymous male jerks only make matters worse.  Like, for example, a recent comment from a mean-spirited man trying to be funny who posted a comment on Twitter that tennis great Serena Williams – in a photo where she is dressed in a tight, orange dress – looked like a man.

Well there are two ways these troubled millennial women and all their up-and-down the generation ladder sisters can rest at ease about their fears.

The first way is to dress modestly as women did long ago.  Like this circa 1915 photo of Lillie Boniface and friends at Burlington Beach, Ontario.

The other way is to take some self-love lessons from middle-aged men, many of whom believe their added girth is really just visual evidence of them being big-boned and packed with muscle.  No portly girth will prevent most middle-aged men from getting their well-deserved beach time during this peak to-be-seen-buff season.

In a spin of "To Sir with Love", a 1967 song sung by the Scottish recording artist Lulu, most rotund middle-aged men hitting the beach this month will do so singing along the way "To Fatback with Love".

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum