The negative reaction to her 'WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?' poster isn't about being "offended", or "taking things personally", or being "mad", or "hating", or being "jealous". Are you people in the 7th grade?
1. Maria Kang started a dialog, whether she intended to, or not. And, I'm guessing this is probably above her head (and above your head as well, if you're posting rah rah nonsense about jealousbitches and dumb fatties needing to suck it up and get a life), but that image with her 3 young children, with their ages in months, and with that caption 'WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?' automatically makes this specifically and distinctly a FEMINIST issue, and it is ripe for a critical reading and critique.
If you don't have the mental capacity or insight to consider the subtext, and are intellectually limited to viewing this topic from a "
DON'T BE MAD, FAT JEALOUS HATERZZZ!" perspective, then I know you tuned out at 'FEMINIST', and you are grumble-grunting right now about "Excuses Excuses Excuses!". That's OK. God bless, you sweet, sweet simpletons.
2. Any time ANY random person tries to push themselves off on the general public as some kind of expert or guru, people are going to throw shade. People have had similar "
WHO THE F#&! ARE YOU?" reactions to Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow when they've gotten insufferable and preachy about things they are not qualified to preach about. Even to Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil...and those dudes, even if you think they are shills and quacks, are actual doctors.
Why should Kang be immune to critique? If you PUBLICLY post anything on the internet, be it a selfie, Facebook update, tweet, Vine, whatever...you open yourself up to criticism.
And she DID, not only publicly post that poster on her deliberately public Facebook page, it was with the intent to reach as many people as possible in order to publicize her "fitness" website, to get as many followers and page views as possible. Her website, by the way, isn't really a fitness website, but more a glorified LiveJournal where her self-obsessed, navel-gazing diary entries include tags like 'LOVE', 'FRIENDSHIP', 'FAITH', 'HAPPINESS', 'TAKING CHANCES' and 'MARRIAGE'.
'FITNESS' is only one tag and so is 'NO EXCUSE PROGRAM'. And 'NO EXCUSE PROGRAM' is NOT any kind of formal or accredited program. It's a bunch of personal journal entries where she humblebrags and proselytizes to her readers/followers, about how she got in shape.
Maria Kang is not a health & fitness expert. She has a BA in International Relations/Asian History, with a minor in Political Science. She worked as a personal trainer at one time (over a decade ago) during her junior year in college, and also won a bunch of beauty pageants, fitness competition titles and magazine covers, during which time she developed an EATING DISORDER for three years.
And it's clear from the obsessive cataloging in her blog of her weight, that she still has issues.
This is her idea of a bad picture where she doesn't think she looks hot or fit or thin enough:
It is so troubling to her that she writes a long, rambling post about it, wherein she, um, makes EXCUSES about "the daily demands of work, children, friendship and marriage".
3. As such, she has no place telling post partum women when, how and how fast to get back in shape, asking the confrontational question of "WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?".
How arrogant to declare yourself as 'inspiration' or FITSPIRATION to post partum women. And how dishonest, when that fitspo is a glamorized, professionally photographed, professionally lighted, professionally styled and Photoshopped image of yourself where you prepared for the photo by cutting carbs and doing extra cardio.
How dishonest to throw a bunch of platitudes out there about only needing 30 minutes a day and not needing to cut carbs to look like you (when that image of you isn't even genuine), when you blog elsewhere that you actually work out at least twice a day and for more like 60 minutes, and sometimes even taking diet pills.
How hypocritical to blog about not comparing yourself to anyone else or to some impossible image of perfection in your head ("Comparison is the thief of joy"), and being morally opposed to ever objectifying yourself, but then challenging women to compare themselves to a glamorized version of yourself, demanding "WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?".
3. 'FITSPO' and 'FITSPIRATION' is a slippery slope that often slides into THINSPIRATION which is anorexia/bulimia territory. It is about glamorizing and fetishizing a rigid idealized image, as opposed to HEALTH.
It's a fine line, and a dangerous line.
The message in most FITSPO is not health, but a contrived aesthetic.
4. There's a big difference between Kang's brand of 'NO EXCUSES' and the others that came before it. There's a big difference between an amputee overcoming huge challenges to transform himself into a model of fitness, and Maria Kang transforming her bikini body into...a sexier bikini body.
This is her idea of "fat". This is the overwhelming obesity calamity she had to "overcome":
No doubt she worked to get her "NO EXCUSES" body, but other people would have to work twice as hard as her...literally eat half as much and workout twice as hard...just to get to her "fat" bikini body. It's pretty pompous to demand "WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?" when you are clearly coming from an advantage.
It's like when some yuppie who was born and raised in white picket fence suburbia proclaims to someone that was born and raised in the ghetto or a trailer park in meth country, West Virginia, "
I worked hard in school and went to college and found a job! I didn't make excuses! All you have to do is work hard if you don't want to be poor anymore!"
Same brand of shortsightedness and pompousness.
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