Britain’s Next Top Role Model?

One thing I am happy to take away from the Olympics this year is not that it was held in this country, it is not the fact that we brought so much gold away with us, nor that it was so overly commercialised and lacked the simplicity of the original Greek games that it overshadowed everything else; but the fact that we finally have some role models that are worth my time adoring.

Admittedly the main ‘role models’ I adore at the moment are the swimmers, and who can blame me! Watching the swimming with my friends, I wasn’t surprised that a sudden surge of interest in the sport overtook me and near enough straight after the event had finished and we had eaten our lunch, we were discussing going swimming that evening. But it wasn’t just the amazing bodies that some of those men and women have on them, it was more that they have become more talked about then any Big Brother or TOWIE person in the last month; and that alone put a smile on my face.

In general the body image of society has slowly been changing for the past year or two, instead of people from TOWIE becoming the more attractive type of woman, men are now more interested in the brains and actual personality of potential partners and preferring the more natural look. And all I can say to that is thank the heavens!

Never was I so relieved when I saw how much people were getting involved in swimming and how many new members signed up at the gym I work at, it was incredible; and mainly because they wanted to have the bodies of the athletes they saw on the Olympics. Now obviously that takes a lot of work, and probably more work that some of these people think, but for now their attention is on a healthier role model; and I am unbelievably happy with that! Instead of fake tan, huge eyelashes and weird hair spray soaked hair, teenagers and young people are beginning to grasp the concept of ‘more is less’.

Even I have been sucked into the idolisation of these people, other than the swimmers of course, with the likes of Chris Hoy and the Brownlee brothers as well as a secret love for Andy Murray; there is no end to the amount of Olympic champions that are donning people’s screens and bedroom walls. My frequency at the gym has increased as well as a new fascination with training programmes and healthy diets; though this ‘fad’ is nothing new with me. I am now asked more at work what programme Tom Daley is on or what the gymnastics eat for breakfast…and although I have no idea, it doesn’t seem to deter them from tapping into Google on their phones while running on the treadmill.

After so many years of sitting on the sofa with my sister and turning into old women complaining about the atrocities of such programmes as TOWIE and the newly released Celebrity Big Brother, I was astonished at how many people now started to want the athletes rather than these television ‘stars’ (using that term loosely). Is this the new step in Britain’s body image? After having Jamie Oliver revealing school dinners and healthy eating, which led to a promotion in food shops of healthy alternatives, and Gok Wan (got to love that man) tackling the size ‘0’ obsession that swept from America; I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can add this to the list.

This is the real legacy from the Olympics, not the 29 gold or all 65 medals, but the realisation within the public and society that there is a different kind of beautiful; and within this ‘type’ more ordinary and average people fit in to. And for that reason alone, I celebrated the Olympics.