Democracy for Vancouver

I was appalled to see this staring at me in the paper across my peanut butter sandwich this morning:

An out-of-shape, out-of-touch Britney Spears delivered what was destined to be the most talked about performance of the MTV Video Music Awards today – but for all the wrong reasons.
…
She walked through her dance moves with little enthusiasm. It appeared she had forgotten the entire art of lip-synching. Perhaps most unforgivable given her once-taut frame, she looked embarrassingly out of shape.

Please look at that picture. Then imagine all of the men and women you see as you go through your normal workday.

We have an epidemic of obesity in this country, spinning off sub-epidemics of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, crippling joint injuries: the list goes on and on. The last thing we need is to have a perfectly-proportioned and statistically underweight 30-something mother of two thrown out at us as “embarrassingly out of shape.” How is anyone reading that supposed to feel that getting into some kind of healthy shape is even possible?

I try not to give too much attention to the tabloid Cassandras shrieking about who’s too thin and whose ass is surprisingly cellulitic, because it’s just too obvious. This is the stuff of the Globe and the National Enquirer.

But when I see a woman whose form beats mine - after 3 years of Tae Kwon Do and 8 months of blackbelt training - derided as “embarrassingly out of shape” in my morning paper, it’s time to blow.

The gal may be seriously fucked up, and we may cringe for her children. But compared to most of us, she looks pretty damn good.