In Salon, derper Amanda Marcotte asserts that the Presidential Physical Fitness Test was reinstated because Donald Trump loves cruelty. It’s not because our children have too much screen time and are too sedentary. No, it is because Trump loves looks. It’s about lookism. Marcotte is incensed the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says heinous things like “sunlight is medicine”. Poor Mandy.

Mandy Marcotte is one of Victory Girls’ favorite whipping girls and the whips are well earned. Marcotte needs lots of therapy and her regular readers are her therapists. Amanda has a permanent case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and is so envious of First Lady Melania Trump it’s painful to read. Actually, Amanda is jealous of anyone who is not on her SIDE. That’s what this is all about. Envy. Beginning with Marcotte’s childhood asthma. Read this from the article “The sinister reason Trump revived the presidential fitness test”:

As an adult, I’m fairly athletic, working out nearly everyday. I’m not going to win any gold medals on my spin bike, but just getting to this point in my life has been a quiet triumph. But as a kid, I was branded terminally unfit, a label that took decades of internal work to overcome. Much of that trauma goes back to the infamous presidential fitness test. Like many childhood asthmatics, my condition peaked around 4th grade, about the time when kids also start developing the keen sense of cruelty that will define their junior high years. Despite my condition, I was put through the ritual humiliation all too many kids from the 1950s through the early aughts endured: Attempted feats of strength, like pull-ups or shuttle runs, all performed for an audience of mocking classmates who enjoyed my failures.

I was a couch potato for years, hobbled by the enduring shame of being labeled a weakling, even after I outgrew asthma. I would put on running shoes and panic, remembering the frequent taunts from classmates, and give up to read instead. Eventually, fear of losing my health as I aged forced me to work through this shame. I discovered that exercise can be fun and empowering — something I would have likely known much sooner if I hadn’t been subject to bullying as a child in the name of “fitness.”

Oh, heck. I got teased about that blessed Presidential Physical Fitness Test. Knowing me, I probably tried to run the 50 yard dash like I thought a ballerina would. I deserved the derision. It wasn’t just the Physical Fitness Test. I only cared about ballet and reading and I talked non-stop. School is brutal. Unlike Mandy, I grew up. Apparently, Mandy didn’t notice that some kids who never did well on academic tests did well on physical tests. It all works out in the end. But, Amanda is a middle-aged woman whose mind is still in 4th grade. The buying she got was not in the name of fitness, it was because she is impossible.

Here is more and this discusses the cruelty part:

But because anything bullying-related turns him on, Donald Trump brought the presidential fitness test back over the summer. This isn’t just about his lifelong love of cruelty, though. It’s part of the larger MAGA project, led by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of using the amorphous concept of “wellness” as a justification for taking away people’s health care. Worse, it’s rooted in a deeply unscientific notion that the measure of how healthy you are is how you look on the outside — and no, children aren’t exempt from this hot-or-not evaluation of “health.

Marcotte has got to stop believing the voices in her head. They lie, a lot. How you look on the outside IS one measure of health, but not the only one. Being healthy doesn’t necessarily make one hot. And, the fluffy, sedentary kids of today do look different than kids of the past. Kid’s in the 1960’s had good nutrition and played outside, if they lived in the cities and suburbs. If they were mountain folk, they might be undernourished and lacking the appropriate amount of sunlight. Sunlight is medicine, no matter what Mandy says.

Even Kennedy and Oz’s bizarre “hiking” stunt from last month was about implying that exercise is a cheap substitute for medical care. The video of their adventure drew a lot of scoffing because Kennedy, as he often does, was working out in jeans, which looked especially stupid when he attempted rock-climbing. But more distressing was Kennedy’s insistence that “sunlight is medicine” and Oz arguing that if “you walk 15 minutes a day, you save the country $100 billion in health expenses.”

What is soooo controversial about this? The Cleveland Clinic loves sunshine:

The Beatles once sang, “Here comes the sun / The smiles returning to their faces / It seems like years since it’s been here.” The famous foursome captured what we all know to be true: A sunny day just makes you feel good (especially after a long, cold winter!)

And it’s not all in your head. Sunlight plays a role in your overall health and well-being, says family medicine doctor Charles Garven, MD. So, it’s important to figure out how to benefit from those rays while also protecting yourself from the damage that too much sun can do.

“In general, you typically need much less direct sunlight than you might think,” Dr. Garven notes. “But even 10 to 30 minutes of sun exposure on bare skin can start to impact levels in a positive way.”

The PBS Newshour ran this piece on exercise as medicine:

The single most potent medical intervention known!

Mandy says one more weird thing:

Wellness influencers often earn their money on shame. By making audiences feel like they aren’t skinny enough or their skin isn’t clear enough, they can convince people they aren’t “healthy” — and need to shell out big bucks on supplements and skin care products that promise to address surface appearances. Unsurprisingly, these MAHA types also believe it’s good to shame kids for not getting gold medals at athletic competitions.

Oh, girl, baby girl. Listening to the wrong “wellness influencers” just upsets those voices in your head. Try “All things in moderation” and therapy for that inner 10 year old. You are middle-aged and it’s time to let the ghosts of your childhood go.

Featured Image: Mass CommunicatSpecialist 2nd Class Jacob Sippel/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Public Domain