Malkijah Griffiths

English 201

2/11/15

First Draft-Essay 1

                                                        The healthy Human Being

          Health is an extremely powerful word that in sense can make or break a person’s entire lifestyle. When defining the state of “health”, one can define it as having their mental, social, and physical state on a particular level to where they are content and they feel alive. The term “alive” simply means that a human being is enjoying life and using their resources to the best of their ability. In the Roxanne Edwards interview and pictures, it was revealed to its viewers that she is a female body builder who has a different understanding of health than the other woman in todays society. The essay “Hard Bodies” by Stuart Ewen gives a description of body that can be improved and worked to its maximum potential. The video “Cuts: A traditional Sculpture” by Heather Cassils shows a transgender working to obtain perfection through multiple aspects of life. Although body building and extreme workout plans seem detrimental to a person’s health, the people mentioned previously make their workouts their life and find it essential to their stability and overall health.

          Roxanne Edwards is a female bodybuilder who’s worth ethic is unimaginable. A typical woman in todays society is one that wants to make their health better, but doesn’t have the knowledge or the set of values to make the thought a reality. Usually, men would be the ones constantly in the gym, pushing themselves to a limit that they couldn’t even dream of doing. Edwards is a woman who challenged the social norm and went beyond the bar for women. According to “Roxanne Edwards is Superhuman”, Roxanne weighs 138 pounds, she can bench press up to 315 points, and less than 4 percent body fat. Not even some of the strongest male athletes can push their body to lift the density of those weights. To get to these insane level of strength, she had to change up her entire diet and lifestyle for that matter. She began to body build at the age of 30. Roxanne had a plan for years because she knew that women’s hormones are shifting at that age and their testosterone level is at a all time high. She had to take steroids to get where she’s at today. Bodybuilding is essential to her health because she went through the research and all the vitamins to get to the point where she is now. When she works out, she feels empowered and she loves the way she looks in the mirror. No matter how out of the ordinary she looks, she doesn’t mind showing off her body to the public.

          The body can be worked and pushed to many different levels. Roxanne proved that the sky is the limit when discussing this matter. To elaborate more on the topic of “health”, one can say that in order to feel content physically, steps needed to be taken and the person needs to be consistent. As Stuart Ewen stated in “Hard bodies”, for Raymond H to achieve his goal, he has to address his body piece by piece (Ewen,62). A person who goes to the gym and does multiple work-outs at one time will not see any real results. For the human body to achieve a level of muscle, each part of the body needs to be worked out on a different day so each part can be significantly looked at. Furthermore, the gym is only 20% of getting built. A person has to do calisthenics on their own, have the appropriate amount of vitamins, and lastly eating the correct protein and disarraying from unnecessary fats. Ewen mentions in the passage that “an aestheticized tribute to the broken-down work processes of the assembly line” (Ewen, 62).  Every-day walks and regular daily routines contribute the health of an individual’s health. Walking for 15 minutes to class instead of taking the bus for 2 minutes gives a huge push forward to the ultimate goal. Working out is like a job, it becomes your life and you find yourself second guessing on almost every decision because of the long-term affect it might have on you.

          In todays society, people are changing and stepping out of their comfort zone. Very frequently, people are taking part in transformations that suit their comfort ability. A lot of people in todays environment are not subject to change or they do not want to see something out of the ordinary. Bodybuilding would usually be considered a man’s duty and humans would most likely have a normal reaction to them. If women begin to suddenly increase in size, people would start giving them looks. Similar to what Roxanne explained in the DISmagazine about the tests that people would give to prove her strength. When relating this to “Cuts: A traditional Sculpture” by H. Cassils, he is a transgender who goes through an everlasting battle every single day of his life. One can say that being a transgender and a bodybuilder can be detrimental to a human’s mental health because of the burdens that come with it. Some of those burdens include nonstop laughter, vicious eye grazes and consistent name calling. However, a strong mind can easily overcome these harmful gestures. The actions previously stated would only bother a person who is self-conscious with the actions that they are doing. As H. Cassils explained in his article, he was working towards a “self-determined body”. The term “self-determined” mean content and satisfied to a point where that person doesn’t pay attention to what other people think. When someone is satisfied with their appearance, the words and the names that unimportant people call them would be irrelevant.

          Health is a term that runs ramped in the minds of people in todays society. Everyone tries to achieve a certain level of health that in some ways are looked at as unachievable. In reality, there isn’t a true definition of health. All three body builders are working out for the same reason in different ways. Roxanne uses set diets and work out plans to achieve her goal.  Raymond H uses machinery at his job to his advantage to working out different parts of his body. Lastly, H. Cassils took certain medication and worked out for a long period of time to see a variety of results. What these weight lifters have in common is that they all want to achieve a goal of looking good, while at the same time defying all odds. Being healthy is state of mind, and if that state of mind isn’t strong enough, any small inference can stray you away from your ultimate goal.