Traci Anderson: Anyone Can Look Like Madonna

Over at Fitceleb.com they have an interview with Traci Anderson, the personal trainer of Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. She claims, “Every woman absolutely can look like Madonna.”

She also insists that she's seen similar results with women from "all kinds of economic backgrounds." I'd like to see the proof that she's done such pro-bono work and that her method is able to transcend the barriers that lack of affordable childcare, nutritional support (aka cheap calories with little nutritional value are pushed on the poor through the very programs, I'm looking at you school lunch programs, that are supposed to "help" them--WIC, I got issues with you too!), and lack of safe neighborhoods or affordable gyms in which to work out in.

She also claims: “I had bread last night, I had chocolate souffle and Gwyneth and Madonna do too." Yet, she also says, "We prefer green juice, fresh vegetables, fish, rice and lean proteins.” Which to me implies a sort of thin through virtue approach that once again ignores the economic conditions, time crunch, and myriad of responsibilities that leave billions without the luxories of having three hours a day to "look like Madonna."

In addition, I know, this rant is on a roll...in addition, I have to say, why would it be desireable for "anyone" (aka everyone) to look "like Madonna." This isn't a comment steeped in body-snarking--I don't want to come off as one of those people who attack her feminity or her body in general for its high musclature as of late--no, no, that's not my point. I mean that we come in all kinds of shapes, shades, heights, preferences, etc. I want to celebrate that and I want to strive for health in my life, not a particular aesthetic. This "anybody" comment of Anderson's is not only unrealistic, its also a kind of erasure of the tremendous diversity in the human form! Instead of striving for what Madonna has come to desire as the best body for herself (that requires the kind of commitment that for me would make me very unhappy, thus its not right for me, but I'm not hating on her), but I do have to call out her trainer for being limiting and shortsighted in her vision of what it is to be inhabiting a healthy or vital body. Her voice in the fitness sphere is dangerous and it reinforces a kind of obsessive fitness that leads people into two kinds of despair: 1. "I can never achieve that, so why try" despair, and 2. similar obsession that disrupts a balanced life despair.

So, dear reader, what's your take on "Anyone can look like Madonna?"