blast that bulging booty at bootcamp baby

I blame that Jane Fonda. I’m not being funny girls but I can’t open a paper or turn on the TV without seeing yet another new workout DVD being promoted. Loads of them.  From Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard and Debbie Rush, to Davina McCall, Rosemary Conley, Nadia Sawalha, Kerry Katona (sigh), Chantelle Houghton and the Strictly Come Dancers. And of course it’s already possible to buy dozens of others already on the market from those respected gurus of fitness and healthy living like er Jessie Wallace and Natalie Cassidy.

I don’t know a lot about this stuff (my less than trim size may be a clue) and looking at them feels a bit like wandering into the ladies lingerie department in M&S; it’s not without its interesting areas but I really feel I ought not be there. However I do know this is big business these days even though it is pretty cynical because it plays on many people’s anxieties about their weight, body shape etc. And it’s women, I’m sure, who are most plagued by this. Hence all these DVD’s being produced by (high-profile) women for women. The basic premise, as evidenced by Clare Nasir’s latest contribution above, seems to be ‘I used to have thunder thighs and dimpled skin like you but look at me now! Buy this DVD and in a few weeks you’ll have a new svelte size 6 body just like mine’. 1000’s of people fall for it but let’s face it how many ordinary housewives get personal trainers and dieticians to help them, lots of spare time to pop down the gym and/or exercise at home and the incentive of knowing there’s a realistic chance to earn a small fortune with a promo DVD at the end of it all?

And none of these people are exercise experts are they and you wonder at some of the advice these celebs sometimes peddle. I read that Chantelle Houghton has even gone on record to say that she thinks Kerry Katona’s weight loss guidance in her DVD is ‘dangerous’. Miaow. Pot and kettle love but she may well have a point. That said I’ve had a sneeky look at Chantelle’s own offering (all in the name of research of course) and all I can say is that it is pink, very pink! Not one for chunky lumberjacks:

The question that occurs is whether any one of these is better than the others? Who knows – from the little evidence I’ve seen, they all seem to offer the same kind of dance exercises, stretching/toning techniques and basic dietary advice. Almost all of them share similar titles with lots of alliteration; Body Blaster, Bulge Buster, Bootcamp, Fat to Fab and so on. You’ve got to assume they’re really all much of a muchness and that people select them based on nothing more scientific than who they like as a personality. Which probably means the former porker KK will outsell them all. Not in this house though.

pp

Advertisement