Health fitness health fitness health ... The more you say it the
more you believe you should be doing it. It’s true that women nowadays
are becoming obsessed with calorie-counting their food intake,
calculating their alcohol point intake and perfecting their
co-ordination at step classes.
So what better to satisfy this ever growing demand than yet another
health and fitness magazine? I myself have always been a lover of Top
Sante, as reading it is almost as productive as an actual workout.
This month, Women’s Health bursts on to the newsstands offering an
intelligent and insightful guide to a healthier lifestyle. When it
landed on my desk I was a bit surprised at the clutching-of-breasts shot
which would have been more fitting on the cover of FHM. However, as
Christine Morgan, the editor, explains, it was chosen because Women’s
Health is ’doing its bit for the real women in the world - strong
healthy women with breasts and hips - it’s goodbye starvation diets and
hello curves.’
Flicking through the magazine, at times I almost feel like I’m reading
Cosmopolitan as I stumble on articles like ’getting over being dumped’
and ’mounting the Viagra bandwagon’. The sectioned editorial hits you
with phrases like ’from flab to fab’ and ’less paunch more raunch’ and I
sense the sharp contrast to Top Sante’s more authoritative style.
However, they leave the best bit till the end: an A to Z of popular
homeopathic remedies, calories and fat in food, essential health
contacts and self-help medicines. It is a perfect hypochondriac’s ready
reckoner - and will no doubt be avidly read by anyone who comes across
it.
In between visits to the gym, Nikki Mendonca is the head of business
strategy at Capital Advertising.
