Let’s get physical
Feeling fat? Of course you are. Whether you’re one of the 69 percent of overweight Americans, or you just don’t have the body you’ve seen on TV, almost nobody looks in the mirror in the morning and thinks, “This is exactly what I want to be looking at.” But that can change! Or, at least, that’s the pitch that has fueled the business of countless fitness magazines for decades.
Women’s Health is an eating disorder with ads. Alexandra Daddario, star of the new Baywatch reboot, graces the cover and gives a practically content-free interview. Even less surprisingly, the 31-year-old poses in different swimsuits that can be shilled to the readers.
What’s worse is that the Rodale publication lards its pages with ads for beer, cheese snacks, chips, and hard seltzer in between its few and scattered diet and exercise tips. A page with a 15-minute workout routine — which uses the new Wonder Woman movie as a hook, of course — is directly across from a Geico ad that uses macaron cookies to make a point about insurance.
When there are actual articles, they are indistinguishable from the fat- and sugar-strewn ads: There’s even a whole page dedicated to “weight loss” foods at Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s. This mag is not only a waste of time, it’s a step backwards.
The cover of Men’s Fitness features Ryan Phillippe, currently the star of “Shooter” as well as a bunch of ’90s horror flicks, in addition to being the ex of Reese Witherspoon. Ostensibly, the piece is about his beach workout routine, but really he’s just here to hawk a new app for middle-age gym rats. (He’s 42).
Comparing a men’s fitness magazine to a women’s is always going to be unfair in one aspect or an- other, but guess what? Men’s Fitness also has an interview with Alexandra Daddario! It’s even worse than the one in Women’s Health. The interviewer laments how he had to conduct it over the phone, and it starts off talking about her boobs in True Detective. It ends with her talking about how “low-key” she is. Turns out her father is the head of counterterrorism for the NYPD, which is kind of interesting.
That aside, this mag does slightly better than its female-focused counterpart. The Geico ad in this one uses apples, not sweets. Others, though, shill protein bars and high-calorie alcohol. On the positive side, Shawn Perine, the mag’s editorial director, is trying to change the direction of MF to shorter, more modest goals that most people can actually achieve. There are also good, counter-intuitive pieces about how reducing salt helps people sleep better, and how sitting may be worse for your knees than running.