Often times people tend to focus more on achieving rapid results or working extra hard to reach their goal, that they tend to neglect the long term effects associated with putting excessive strain on their bodies. Throughout Susan Bordo’s “Reading the Slender Body”, and Greg Garber’s “ESPN Sports Injury Series”, we will explore the numerous ways in which our vision of the good life can become tainted or damaged due to the effects associated with repetitive harmful behavior. This includes, pushing our bodies to their limit, in order to obtain a desired result. In addition to the dangers of depriving our bodies of the rest they deserve.
Today, society has set a standard of what it means to be beautiful. Society has constructed a specific manner …show more content…
But in reality, these physical transformations, are social standards set up by those who think that they will be happy once they lose “x” amount of weight, or grow “x” amount of inches. For instance, one of the physical costs associated with this includes restricting the amount of food we consume. For example: Susan Bordo 's Reading the Slender Body states that “those who could afford to eat well began systematically to deny themselves food in pursuit of an aesthetic ideal” (BORDO). However, as time goes by, we tend to notice changes in social standards. For instance, one day it is only considered beautiful if you 're thin, the next day, only if you 're curvy. For example, “the bulging stomachs of mid-nineteenth- century businessmen and politicians were a symbol of bourgeois success, an outward manifestation of their accumulated wealth” (BORDO). However, compared to the 21-century, what was a symbol of bourgeois success, is now considered a symbol of neglect, laziness, and lack of health and willpower. This serves as evidence that society will never be content with a specific body size, frame, or weight. Therefore, proving that some aspects of a person 's good life is not only harmful, but unrealistic. This obsession with trying to look a certain way will drive people to do things such as starving themselves, go through with dangerous operations, or consuming harmful “miracle
Today, society has set a standard of what it means to be beautiful. Society has constructed a specific manner …show more content…
But in reality, these physical transformations, are social standards set up by those who think that they will be happy once they lose “x” amount of weight, or grow “x” amount of inches. For instance, one of the physical costs associated with this includes restricting the amount of food we consume. For example: Susan Bordo 's Reading the Slender Body states that “those who could afford to eat well began systematically to deny themselves food in pursuit of an aesthetic ideal” (BORDO). However, as time goes by, we tend to notice changes in social standards. For instance, one day it is only considered beautiful if you 're thin, the next day, only if you 're curvy. For example, “the bulging stomachs of mid-nineteenth- century businessmen and politicians were a symbol of bourgeois success, an outward manifestation of their accumulated wealth” (BORDO). However, compared to the 21-century, what was a symbol of bourgeois success, is now considered a symbol of neglect, laziness, and lack of health and willpower. This serves as evidence that society will never be content with a specific body size, frame, or weight. Therefore, proving that some aspects of a person 's good life is not only harmful, but unrealistic. This obsession with trying to look a certain way will drive people to do things such as starving themselves, go through with dangerous operations, or consuming harmful “miracle