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Pathology on Parade


I posted a couple of videos (here and here) last week from Exuberant Animal.

They have just posted a superb essay - Pathology on Parade - that is well worth reading. It is about observations of bodybuilders - and the bodybuilding culture - at the recent Arnold Bodybuilding Festival.

where’s the health?

In the end, the whole experience brought me to an entirely new level of misunderstanding. For years I have agonized over the state of the modern human body, especially our epidemic of sedentary living and physical apathy.
But here I observed something altogether different. The bodybuilders weren’t sedentary and they obviously weren’t obese, but they certainly weren’t healthy.
Outside of the convention center, I observed normal Americans as they passed: they were fat and sedentary as usual. As I stood on the sidewalk and looked around, the contrast was stark: On one side of the door, a parade of diabetic adipose tissue. On the other, a parade of obsessive-compulsive muscle and silicone.
So now I feel like Diogenes with a lamp on a dark night. But instead of looking for one honest man, I’m now looking for one truly healthy man or woman.
Or better yet, a healthy culture.
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Anonymous said…
Meh. The essay took an easily argued premise (bodybuilders aren't healthy) and used it as a platform for liberal moralizing and hand wringing. Again I say meh. As far as the original premise of bodybuilders not being healthy, I could agree if we're talking about the steroid users, but find it much harder to agree when talking about the more natural ones just using food and food supplements.
March 15, 2009 at 4:25 AM
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