the perfect body page

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The Perfect Body, as Illustrated by Olympic Athletes » Sociological Images

[softthings]

mmm, banana hammocks....

[jedikelly]

checked that out yesterday -- loved it

[lunadam]

mmm, banana hammocks....

I was going to click on the link until I read this...

[Lars86]

Conceptually I agree that isn't one perfect body, but I don't think that they've illustrated that 100%.

Take the very large woman weightlifter... she is hardly the picture of health. Many of the others probably fit into what Mark described in his book. Without knowing any of them, I'd say that a number focus on a very narrow skill set and type of activity. The more you specialize, the further from balanced you become. Some don't even need to be much of an athlete in my eyes (the golfer for example). Then there are those who are great athletes in well rounded sports, or who's training/fun is well rounded; it is still very possible that they are overtraining, eating all the wrong things and have compromised their overall health.

[softthings]

I was going to click on the link until I read this...

there are some ladies in there too.....

[denise]

very interesting. LOTS of female "perfect bodies" there that I would NOT aspire to - and men I find deeply physically unattractive. All in the eye of the beholder of course!

Genetics of course point people at specific sports - no short muscular high jumpers, no heavy-set long distance runners - and I don't think its just "the sport makes the body", I think its also "the body makes the choice of sport'??

[theholla]

Genetics of course point people at specific sports - no short muscular high jumpers, no heavy-set long distance runners - and I don't think its just "the sport makes the body", I think its also "the body makes the choice of sport'??

Totally agreed! A lot of the women shown appear to be genetic outliers, either in terms of height or build.

[Primal Fist]

The perfect body is the one that the cops don't see you burying.

[ErinC]

Man, I love athletic bodies of all shapes and sizes. Bodies that have been trained to DO something. I'm bummed that they chucked a bodybuilder in there, though. I have a (probably irrational, so bear with me) dislike for classifying builders as "athletes." Their job is to scuplt muscles that look nice but are functionally pretty useless.

The high-jumpers' bodies and basketball bodies (male and female) were the ones I thought to be the closest to my ideal of perfect - an ideal I will never reach, I should add (and I'm okay with this). Bodies built for running and leaping. *sigh* Simply beautiful.

Remind me to never become a marathoner. Oh wait. Nevermind. I just remembered I hate running for more than 1km at a time.