Unfit Youth

A while ago I was at a girlfriends' house and noticed a flyer for a local gym on her kitchen table. I asked if her husband was planning on joining (he was recovering from knee surgery). She said that it was her 16 year old daughter that was looking to join. Huh? 16 years old and looking to join a gym? I was baffled. Isn't that what PE is for? Apparently these days there is very little physical education offered in the schools. The conversation progressed to our own memories of PE which consisted of the boys who we thought were cute or the number of times we skipped out. I guess not much physical education was done in our day either.

I didn't think much more about this until the other night. Ke$ha was in town and I happened to be near the stadium and began noticing the girls going to the concert. The thing that really caught my eye was how unfit these girls were. Girls in their late teens and early 20's already showing signs of cellutlite. WTF! At their age, the only reason I even knew what cellulite was is because my mother complained about it. Then I thought back a few weeks to when I was at the football game and remembered the girl that not only had cellulite on the backs of her legs but also on her thighs. She was in her 20's. I had a guy tell me recently that cellulite wasn't a deal-breaker. The guys I used to work with winced if a woman in her 40's had cellulite. But I guess it really can't be a deal-breaker these days if the majority are afflicted by it.

What is going on? Are we on our way to creating the Super-Sized society that is engulfing our neighbors to the south? It's obvious that our city has a distinctive divide. On the one hand, you've got the fitness freaks and on the other the youth that have grown up on Chicken McNuggets.

So for any of you girls reading this, here's WineSnob's guide to avoiding cellulite. Start wearing high heels. I've been wearing heels daily since I was 16. My favorite boots in high school had 3 1/2 inch heels. Wore them religiously. I remember when I moved up to 4" heels and then 5" stillettos. There was that very dark period when heels were no longer fashionable but I overcame. I started buying shoes where all the strippers shopped. I frequented that store so often I became eligible for the 'dancers discount'. But it's easier and cheaper now to find stylish high heels so you have no excuse.

It won't be easy at first but nothing worth having ever is. Start low and work your way up and pretty soon you'll find that you can't imagine not wearing them. Plus there is the added leg workout bonus. Your calves will develop in such a way that when you do decide to go to the gym you can avoid doing all those donkey raises. I was in a fitness class recently with a whole series of calf related exercises. I had a little rest during that section. I once dated a body-builder who literally cried when he saw my calves. All his years of training and he couldn't achieve what I had.

The benefits are endless. Only good can come from wearing heels. I climbed the pyramids in Egypt in 3" wedges. My friends still talk about that. It has become the stuff of legend. And don't worry about being taller than the boys. If any of them give you grief, just remind them that it's inconsequential once you're horizontal.