A few months ago, days ahead of my 45th birthday, I reflexively clicked on a suggested post in my Instagram feed. “She looks like me – in a good way,” I thought appreciatively, taking in the anonymous woman whose form presented itself for judgment before my bleary morning eyes. Without detailing how I scrutinized her body in a way I know is unhealthy, I could tell from her strong physique — and the weights in the frame — that she clearly worked out, but also that she had probably carried children, and that her priorities appeared to be what I consider healthy: occasionally skipping the gym, enjoying a cocktail, polishing off your kids’ fries, or even ordering your own. As a historian of fitness culture and longtime gym rat who has experienced firsthand the body-image pressures that sadly remain a rite of passage into American womanhood, I curate my feeds to exclude the most noxious content, like new moms shilling flat-belly tea and “fitpros'' whose expertise lies in camera angles rather than exercise science. But this time, the algorithm got it right, I marveled, smashing the “like'' button with satisfaction.
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The Eternal Aesthetics of Youth
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A few months ago, days ahead of my 45th birthday, I reflexively clicked on a suggested post in my Instagram feed. “She looks like me – in a good way,” I thought appreciatively, taking in the anonymous woman whose form presented itself for judgment before my bleary morning eyes. Without detailing how I scrutinized her body in a way I know is unhealthy, I could tell from her strong physique — and the weights in the frame — that she clearly worked out, but also that she had probably carried children, and that her priorities appeared to be what I consider healthy: occasionally skipping the gym, enjoying a cocktail, polishing off your kids’ fries, or even ordering your own. As a historian of fitness culture and longtime gym rat who has experienced firsthand the body-image pressures that sadly remain a rite of passage into American womanhood, I curate my feeds to exclude the most noxious content, like new moms shilling flat-belly tea and “fitpros'' whose expertise lies in camera angles rather than exercise science. But this time, the algorithm got it right, I marveled, smashing the “like'' button with satisfaction.