You can smell it in the air. The nauseous whiff of bronzed, lithe bodies in expensive bikinis lying out by the Student Recreation Complex pool. Funny, I always thought that swimming pools were used for more physically challenging activities, but my belief was crushed when I endeavored to partake in a little group exercise in the shallow end yesterday and 300 eyes were on my pale and wobbly butt.
I thought I was beyond the clutches of body issues, having finally reached a decision on entering University that I was damn fine the way I was built, and my intellectual capacity, not my breasts, would grant me the career of my dreams. My resolve melted as quickly as my iced chai on that first day at ASU in the sweltering month of August. I am one of the sullen 91 percent of college women (according to a 1995 study) who profess to having dieted to control their weight throughout their college careers, and it makes me sick to my stomach to have lost so much pride in myself in that first semester.
So I binned the ridiculous diet and drew up a game plan of exercise to follow instead that would get my heart rate up and give my body a healthy boost. I even have a workout buddy. Then the sun came out, and we thought a spot of aqua aerobics wouldn't go amiss.
Surrounded by hundreds of "attractive" students, I felt like a specimen at the zoo as they whispered, pointed and laughed openly at our assortment of float-assisted exercises. At one point we got a round of exaggerated applause for swimming two lengths with a kick-board from a group of arrogant jocks. How I yearned to shove my float someplace other than the side of the pool. The instructor considered asking them to leave, but she was also intimidated, and besides, it wouldn't stop the staring.
I was aghast at this reaction. I thought maturity was supposed to be in full momentum by the time you started college, but obviously not at ASU. What bothers me the most is not that they may have been laughing at how pale I am, or how much of my body appears to have merged into my ass, but the fact that they were laughing at us doing exercise. I can really see the comedy in that. And it sends out a great message for people taking sensible steps toward healthy living; only fatties do exercise, the rest of us are genetically blessed.
I've got to break it to you, 98 percent of women aren't as thin as most models, and if the average mannequin's proportions were transferred onto a woman she would probably be infertile. That "genetic blessing" seems to be vacant for a huge majority of women, and what a relief seeing as we should have no excuse to shun fitness regardless of body shape. Bringing out the dusty Reeboks doesn't have to indicate you want to lose weight, just that you are taking a proactive attitude to adopting a healthy lifestyle and helping prevent all those nasty things like heart disease and diabetes. That goes for both guys and gals, large and small.
So laugh all you like at my water escapades. Chuckle as I splash like a 3-year-old in the shallow end, and guffaw as I strap on a life belt and doggie paddle in the deep. Then you can laugh as long as you like as I amble through national parks, hike the Grand Canyon and backpack through Central America, whilst you can't even make it up the stairs. Now that is funny.
Katie McCrory is a history junior. Reach her at kathleen-ellen.mccrory@asu.edu.
