Rotorua Daily Post
  • Rotorua Daily Post home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Residential property listings
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Rural
  • Sport

Locations

  • Tauranga
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales

Weather

  • Rotorua
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Eva Bradley: Time to get real about bodies

By Eva Bradley
NZME. regionals·
22 Mar, 2016 03:54 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Women are bombarded with images of perfect bodies, such as JLo's. Photo / Shutterstock

Women are bombarded with images of perfect bodies, such as JLo's. Photo / Shutterstock

It is a universal truth that, as life and the responsibilities in it expand, some priorities will slip down the list, and others will drop right off it.

Never an enthusiastic supporter of today's obsession with staying fit and working out, I quite happily put exercise in the "would if I could, but can't so I won't" category after having a baby and returning to work.

Eva Bradley
Eva Bradley

My husband, meanwhile, has remained more committed to the retention of his pre-baby body (yes, men have them too) and despite far more responsibilities at home, he still manages to squeeze in a run around the block with the dog or a bi-weekly mission to the gym.

Read more: Editorial: Open to holiday trading

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But lately as his work commitments have increased too, he's taken to very endearingly apologising for his body, which looks to me exactly as it always has but, as we all know, it's not how the world or our wives see us, it's how we see ourselves.

Last night, however, he added a caveat to his apology, saying, "It isn't so bad for a business body," to which I added the rejoinder that it teamed up nicely with my impressive "working mother's body".

While it was all in jest and we had a good laugh, it got me thinking about the importance of judging ourselves in a relative way, if indeed one has to judge at all.

Unless you live under a rock, it is very hard to go through the day without being bombarded with images of perfection in its various, usually youthful forms.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The girls eating icecream on TV commercials are - for a start - girls and could, because of that fact, eat 10 icecreams a day and still be a size 8.

Frankly, my model body is terrible. But my working mum body is something to be proud of. And since I'm a working mum and not a model, things could certainly be far worse.

Eva Bradley

The men creating the "Lynx effect" as they strut along with women in their wake are suspiciously chiselled of jaw and toned of thigh as well as smelling apparently irresistible.

Even the fresh-faced mothers cooing over giggling newborns in the nappy ads look like they'd struggle to birth a pea let alone a small human.

And yet these are the idealised bodies many of us - often quite unconsciously - aspire to or judge ourselves by.

Discover more

Eva Bradley: Food bags live up to the hype

01 Mar 03:52 PM

Eva Bradley: Grandparents are a godsend

09 Mar 03:52 PM

Eva Bradley: Making a meal of extraordinary

15 Mar 03:52 PM

Eva Bradley: Learning new digital-age tricks

30 Mar 09:30 AM

So, lets get real, people. We don't expect to be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt so why do we look at Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lopez and find ourselves wanting?

The reality is that , if we stood beside Joe Public or anyone else going about daily life with a mortgage, 1.5 children and no team of stylists, we'd probably scrub up okay.

Yes it's true, I could spend every spare moment I have working out and I would undoubtedly look better than I do now.

But that would come at the cost of something more important, such as time with my family, or under the duvet with a good book and a cup of tea (okay yeah ... a Tim Tam as well).

Frankly, my model body is terrible. But my working mum body is something to be proud of. And since I'm a working mum and not a model, things could certainly be far worse.

So instead of comparing myself to the ideal, I'm going to try harder to compare myself to the real. And, in doing so, maybe one day I'll stop comparing all together. Though probably if that happened, you'd find a whole packet of Tim Tams under the covers instead of just one.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua Daily Post

From the ashes: New golf clubhouse unveiled five years after devastating fire

19 Jun 06:00 PM
Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua chef denies arson of his own home

19 Jun 06:00 AM
Rotorua Daily Post

How to celebrate Matariki in Rotorua

19 Jun 05:01 AM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

From the ashes: New golf clubhouse unveiled five years after devastating fire

From the ashes: New golf clubhouse unveiled five years after devastating fire

19 Jun 06:00 PM

Club operations manager Rachel Beckett wants to attract events and functions.

Rotorua chef denies arson of his own home

Rotorua chef denies arson of his own home

19 Jun 06:00 AM
How to celebrate Matariki in Rotorua

How to celebrate Matariki in Rotorua

19 Jun 05:01 AM
Watch: 'Hand of God' controversy in schoolboy rugby scrum

Watch: 'Hand of God' controversy in schoolboy rugby scrum

19 Jun 04:29 AM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Rotorua Daily Post e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Rotorua Daily Post
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP