First Paper Rough Draft

            Each and every person has their own reasoning for the things they do. This pertains a lot to exercising and body building. Many people exercise or body build to achieve the idea of  "health". I believe that everyone has their own definition and way to achieve "health" but in a general sense, I think health is about having a balance of the elements in your life and taking care of your own wellbeing, having self ability and staying fit to avoid any illnesses. In the essay,  "Hard Bodies" by Stuart Ewen, and the interview, "Roxanne Edwards is Superhuman" with S. Adrian Massey, it can be seen that these bodies align with the notion of "health" but align in their own way.

            People have and give their own reasons for working their bodies and one of the more common ones is to portray the popular social representation of "fit" and "health". In "Hard Bodies" it had a lot to do with the image and wanting to look a certain way. There are many magazines and ads out there that have pictures "situated right below the neck, an instrumentally achieved study in brawn" (Ewen, 63) to advertise this look of a really fit body, toned, sweat, and muscle. The many people that use these images as inspiration, gets themselves to the gym to exercise just for this image. Then you get this idea, that was stated by John Berger, "skin without biography" (Ewen, 63). It becomes about the "transformation of the body into a kind of industrial product, something you 'build' every day at the gym" (Ewen, 60), which is the whole idea of the essay, that routine workouts are not even for one's wellbeing, it is to look like this image that everyone describes as fit. It makes these hard bodies have no biographies, becoming very common and uniform, reaching a status of this certain style. Though it looks easy, these activities can have private repercussions. Some people don't understand that if they work too hard they could damage muscle and end up hurting themselves. They only think about how badly they want to look this certain way and put themselves into overdrive which can definitely have a negative impact on the body. "The hard shell is now a sign of achievement" (Ewen, 62), making the goal more about the look than the touch or feel or achievement.

            Whereas many people work out for the image, some work out for themselves. They like the sense of being fit and healthy not just for the image. In the interview "Roxanne is Superhuman", we hear about how she does all the bodybuilding for herself. She states that "you're doing yourself and this is how I choose to express my femininity" (Massey). She had lost her breasts, saying how it is just body fat and that "you don't just lose body fat, you choose to lose it" (Massey), showing how exercising and bodybuilding should all be about choice, not making yourself into some image on a magazine. Although she exercises for herself, she "uses bodybuilding not to define [herself] but to help [herself] get things to show women that they can be defined any way they feel like being defined" (Massey). She uses herself as an example to show women that 'you can do whatever you want, don't let the image or someone stop you from doing it'. Even though she uses steroids, she takes a lot of other vitamins and electrolytes that help her out in this bodybuilding process. With that being the private repercussion, she also has some public repercussions. Being a black bodybuilder is tough and Roxanne knows that but she doesn't give up, nor does she care what the public thinks about her. My first impression of seeing her, was that she looked intimidating, like a person you should not mess with, but she loves the way she looks, as mentioned when she talks about having done nude modeling before, she loves to show and display her body. She is aware that there are people out there who judge her but she doesn't care, caring would, as she argues would be "like giving them too much power" (Massey).  "[She], on the other hand, would like to be around long enough to stick it to them" (Massey), them being the people that don't like the whole bodybuilding image she's providing.

            These two works, give us a sense to what reasons people give for working out their bodies, and it still aligns with this notion of "health". Even though in "Hard Bodies" the people were working for that certain image, it made them healthy and fit, and looking like that being their goal, makes them in sync with the term "health". Along with that, Roxanne had done what she did with her body, through weightlifting, which was by choice for herself, she wanted to do it and she did. With that, I think it aligns with "health" because she achieved what she defines as health. Not everything in life can be healthy and perfect so with those activities, it's understood that there can be some private repercussion and some public repercussions but everyone has their own reasoning for the things they do.