Calling out to the wannbes. Review on Shape

Everyone wants to be something. You want to be famous, you want to be rich, you want to be a lawyer or a vet or a belly dancer. I want to be a meteorologist or a musician or an actress or a literature professor. I want to be a lot of things. I want to be smart and appreciated and loved. Many people want many different things. But almost everyone wants to be fit. Everyone wants to have firm abs and a toned body. Who, when given the choice, would take a shabby body over a fit, healthy one?

''Shape'' just may inspire you to do something about it. Every month they have many diverse moves for all parts of your body. They give you many workouts you can do no matter your walk of life. You can usually find a workout, or modify a workout to fit your daily schedule and needs. It gives you health tips and recipes, eating advice and mental issues.

There are a few problems though. One is, every other page is an ad. I mean, you have to turn four pages in the beginning before you even get to the table of contents. If you took out all the ads, the magazine would be half it's normal size. But it really is packed with a bunch of information.

Here is another problem. Some of the articles in the magazine stress that physical appearance isn't everything. That you don't have to have a perfect body to feel good about your self. That's a good thing but...

The models pictured on front of the magazine and throughout are, well, models, and they look great, almost too good to be real. And yes, it gives us something to strive for, buts let's be realistic. Most of us are never going to look like that no matter how hard we try. Many women aren't built to be 115 pounds with perfect abs. I know I wasn't. And it's not a very real goal for us to strive to.

It seems to me the magazine contradicts itself by using these models yet proclaiming ''You are beautiful the way you are''. It's near enough to make you scoff and throw the magazine away in disgust, thinking ''I'll never look like that, why bother?''

But if you can handle the ads and models and enjoy having a varied workout, like getting new recipes and health alerts and advice, Shape is not so bad. Just remember that, though you may not look like those models, you are still beautiful and you're still a child of God.