Sports Illustrated swimsuit 2022: Be the change you want to see

By: Michael Beiter

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover 2022

'Be The Change You Want to See'

They feature plus-sized cover model Yumi Nu, plastic surgery queen Kim K, singer Ciara, and 74 year old nutritionist Maye Musk.

I'm for the older healthy woman and against Kim K and the plus-sized model. I'm indifferent to Ciara.

Maye Musk looks fantastic and has healthy levels of body fat that you can SEE without knowing how much she weighs. I'm good with the change this cover suggests: health and confidence with age. It should come as no surprise she is a nutrition master.

Similarly, the Yumi Nu has too much body fat discernable by the eye without knowing how much she weighs. Her amount of body fat increases her risk for diabetes, CVD, cancer, and all-cause mortality. I'm against the change this cover suggests: confidence with too much body fat.

Body positivity is for uncontrollable things like scars, birthmarks, loss of limb, etc. We KNOW that body fat does not fall into the same category, but the body positivity movement relentlessly claims it does. Teaching people that they are helpless to their body fat levels like they are to being born with a birthmark is a wrong choice.

Kim K has had extensive plastic surgery. I don't think we should be encouraging women to change themselves with plastic surgery. I prefer natural means of change and improvement and think surgical means should be a last resort after evidence of other ineffective interventions.

Ciara is pretty awesome, beautiful, and is fit and healthy. I think she is a great representative for the magazine.

My friends, the changes I want to see are: from plus sizes down, not healthy measures UP, from plastic and fake to natural and beautiful. For nutrition leading to health in the eighth and ninth decades of life and artists prioritizing their bodies as part of their career.

I have over 40 active female clients who pay me to help them change their body composition, and not one of them desires to go up in size. I have serviced hundreds of females over a decade, and the same story fits.

I have helped women post weight loss surgeries of all types, and they are more successful with behavior change than with surgical intervention. I think surgery is a good idea when people lose a bunch of weight and want to tighten up the loose skin.

I side with the body positivists; love what you've got, as long as it meets health standards, which excess body fat levels do not.

Now, onto beauty. For a long time, I've believed beauty is subjective and falls in the eyes of the beholder. The more I studied evolution, the more I learned about studies that suggest there are near-universal beauty standards that babies respond to, which most adults support, which lead to more reproductive success.

Evolution is most concerned with passing on genes and survival, so when looked at through this lens, there are patterns of facial and body features that suggest one is more beautiful and thus fit for having kids than others. Beautiful faces are symmetrical and have tiny margins for space between eyes, hairline, nose, lips, etc., which are beautiful. Specifically, low to moderate body fat levels in females are desirable; low-fat levels, broad shoulders, and a v-taper aesthetics from the waist to shoulders are beautiful in males.

Definitions of beauty vary, but patterns throughout history suggest ideals have remained pretty constant for thousands of years. Think of the statues of antiquity: males with muscle all over, females with curvature. You'd be hard-pressed to find obese or overweight figures from any of the ancient civilizations. I'm not saying modern ideals like the Barbie or GI Joe doll are realistic, far from it, but replacing those extremes with the extremes of excess fat or curvature is not the answer. The truth is variable, somewhere in the middle, as with so many things.

My biggest concern is that people will internalize that they have no control over their body fat levels and subject themselves to unnecessary health risks. I have hundreds of case studies proving this untrue, as does the scientific literature on the topic.

Two of the four covers are worth the subtitle 'Be The Change You Want to See' to me. The other two can jog on.