Striving for perfection

Between the uprisings in Egypt and the problems appointing a new army next chief of General Staff, it was a rough week for upbeat news. When all else fails, look at looks.

By ANDREA SIMANTOV
Meat skewers 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Meat skewers 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Between the uprisings in Egypt, the admirable silence from our own government, the pitiable rise in water levels in Lake Kinneret and the problems surrounding the appointment of Maj.-Gen.
Yoav Galant as the army’s next chief of General Staff, it was a rough week for upbeat news in these here hills. Whenever this happens, I frantically search for news from elsewhere to get my jollies, and this week proved to be a gold mine for discovering items that make life in the Middle East look downright reasonable.
That said, whenever I feel at a loss for something meaningful and life-changing to report or the news here is just too bleak to get energized about, I fall back on the tried and true subjects of looking good and feeling great.
Magazines have relied on this method of encouraging reader interest since time immemorial, and I am happy to emulate anything that works.
My son recently introduced me to several outré Internet news sites that allow me access to sometimes-odd and occasionally interesting tidbits that make me feel happy with my own lot in life.
For example, there is an obesity crisis in the First World. This week, The New York Times has grabbed the issue by the shoulders and instead of merely advising Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables while limiting salt and saturated fat, its newest report bluntly says, “Eat less and avoid oversized portions.”
US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the new “dietary recommendations give individuals the information to make choices of healthier foods in the right portions and to complement those choices with physical activity.”
Feeling a need to conduct my own personal research, I brought a copy of this report to lunch recently at a steakiya restaurant in a working-class section of Jerusalem. Apparently none of the diners were New York Times subscribers because no one seemed to be avoiding large portions. In fact, while tables groaned under mounds of skewered liver, beef, chicken morsels and lamb kebabs, waitresses with swollen ankles were flinging soup bowls filled with sizzling French fries and baskets of ovenfresh laffa bread across the room faster than my mother can shout “Overeaters Anonymous.”
Trying to look like a professional reporter (pencil tucked behind my ear, half-glasses perched atop the bridge of my nose), I asked an attractive bleached-blonde housewife if she knew her cholesterol levels, and she stared at me before, in turn, inquiring, “What do I look like, an American?” Good point. Still, I know that Israelis are hitting the gyms and frequenting health food stores in alarming numbers. The path along which I take my morning jog has grown increasingly congested, and trying to get a bicycle reservation for a spinning class in Pisgat Ze’ev is difficult in the middle of the week.
Any female resident reading this knows just how difficult it is to exit a local drugstore without being offered a free makeup trial by a gal who makes Tammy Faye Bakker look like a nun. For those of us who are not naturally exquisite, drugstores, salons and other beauty centers have invested great reserves in telling us that with only a small investment we, too, can look hotter than hot.
Sadly, I’m not one for research, but let me encourage anyone reading this nonscientific thesis to submit his own observations. Almost everyone I know belongs to a gym or a walking club (whether or not they attend either), and I’ve yet to meet someone who says, “I couldn’t care less about how I look or feel.” Everyone cares. But I would love to know how Israelis compare with the Americans they so love to hate and yet imitate.
San Franciscans spend $111 on personal care products each month, more than 50 percent maintain a normal weight, and more than 20% belong to gyms. More Bostonians belong to gyms than their San Francisco peers, but they spend only $106 on personal care. And let’s not even discuss Dallas, where less than 17% of the residents belong to a gym. Chili con carne and chicken/beef fajitas can result in caloric buildup, but clearly Texans have a long way to go until they realize the connection between high cholesterol levels and heart disease. None of this is meant to disparage Texans over the diners in my neighborhood who were wolfing down felafel balls at an alarming rate while I attempted to interest them in waist-trimming exercises.
And just when I stopped feeling insecure about my not-as-toned as Michelle Obama arms, along comes the new English princess-to-be Kate Middleton, making me feel kinda crummy about my sagging knees. Evidently Brits have little else to worry about because their papers are chockful of analyses of how this gal is constantly flaunting her stunning meniscuses and how British women are worrying that their knees are too fat.
According to the Boston Globe, there are options and I, as a future bride, may consider going the Demi Moore route and purchase a high-priced knee lift. This amazing procedure shapes the muscles around the knees and reverses the sagging effect. But if this choice turns out to be too financially steep or a tad too invasive, I just learned that MAC Cosmetics makes a foundation that can be applied to the knees.
I’ll keep you posted.