Comedian Phyllis Diller once said, “I wore a bikini and the tide wouldn’t come in.” Follow the lead of these mags and maybe that won’t happen to you.
Self will get you pumped up for summer with lots of talk (and pictures) about skin care and swimsuits, including how to mix and match a pretty one-piece with regular clothes. But when it comes to the workouts, which is what make this mag stand out from any other girly mag, Self appears to be stuck indoors. Editor-In-Chief Lucy Danziger could have done a better job, in view of the approaching summer, of bringing a workout to be done only outdoors. Instead, we get the same old weight and ab workout that, while challenging, it never could be done, say, on a poolside patio. Given that it’s Bike Month, as the mag noted with a piece on must-have biking gear, we could have done with an inspirational story about a cool bike routine or a biking vacation.
Shape is a depressing 192-page slog through endless exercise spreads and photos of shiny, happy young women in itsy-bitsy bikinis. It is an exhausting read for a cold May on the East Coast. In a sign of the times, there’s a well-placed ad for Danskin athletic clothing at the front of the mag, and an inside back interview with its new spokeswoman, E! star, Giuliana Rancic. On the plus side, Shape is sprinkled with how-I-did-it features to keep the reader inspired. If you are a fitness freak, you’ll enjoy reading about Ali Sweeney, host of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” She reveals how she overcame her fears of baring skin for the latest Shape cover shot — in a bikini.
When you say “Best Chicken Ever” on the cover of your magazine, you better deliver. Unfortunately, Men’s Health just offers a couple of recipes for preparing poultry. Hardly best-ever status. Curry chicken salad is great, but nothing in here is Food Network good. Think a cooking segment on your local TV news. Now, the magazine at least mixed it up this month with an actual cover, not just random abs. “Game of Thrones” actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau graces the front. He is where it’s at right now. Also, there is a guide to shredded abs that seems like it should work, if you can follow those little three-step sketches without straining yourself.
Fat people aren’t necessarily less healthy than skinny people, according to one recent study. But that didn’t keep New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from getting lap-band surgery. Maybe that’s because he dug a little deeper into the facts, which are laid bare by Fitness. The problem is visceral belly fat that reaches deep into the abdomen is linked to heart disease, diabetes and a higher mortality rate. A good indicator of how much you have is your waist circumference. “The closer to a circle shape a person is, the more visceral body fat she has,” according to the mag. So hats off to Christie and his efforts to become a bit more ovoid.
The New Yorker’s “Innovators Issue” presents some exciting new technology, and some that’s not so exciting. Susan Orlean makes an admirable case for replacing the chair at your desk with a treadmill, but somehow we can’t see it catching on. Harvard is making a big push to sell lectures online, something we can see catching on, but perhaps at the expense of education. On the positive side, there’s the doctor with a revolutionary method for treating folks with dementia at retirement homes: chill out and stop ordering them around, telling them when to get up, bathe, eat and go to sleep. Genius!
With the possible exception of TV Guide, no publication loves to veg out in front of the TV more than New York. Gracing the cover of this week’s TV issue is Michael Douglas who, starring in an upcoming movie about Liberace, “Behind the Candelabra,” is smiling coyly with a big swoosh of purple mascara above one eye. “It may not have been 14 inches,” Douglas says of the flamboyant piano player’s member, whose rumored size was the stuff of legend. “But it was huge.” No less laudable here is the depiction of co-star Matt Damon, who leapt at the chance to play Liberace’s 18-year-old lover.
Time declares on its cover that millennials are “lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents,” and promises to tell us “Why they’ll save us all.” The story inside makes a good case for the former, but the latter is little more than a Hail Mary pass, suggesting that their overdeveloped self-esteem and sense of entitlement will somehow, at some point, help them move out of their parents’ houses. In a similar, hope-y, change-y, feel-y vein, a profile of Denis McDonough depicts President Obama’s new chief of staff and his efforts to break the gridlock between the White House and Congress. We’re skeptical, but will back his football cheers nevertheless.