Tina Fey Pens Love Letter to Ronda Rousey, Makes Us Think Twice About How We Value Our Bodies


Yesterday, TIME released its 2016 100 Most Influential People list. Ronda Rousey, UFC badass, made the list, and Tina Fey, Upper Darby native and girl crush to all, penned the TIME blurb about Rousey — a short love letter to her, really. And if Rousey wasn’t already one of your fitness idols, she’s about to be.

The whole blurb is worth reading (it will take you all of one minute), but the part that really stuck with me was when Fey said this:

“And I recommend you immediately get a tattoo of Ronda’s full ‘DNB’ quote in which she explains that every muscle in her body serves a purpose and the way she looks is just a by-product. Imagine if we could teach our daughters to value their bodies for what they can do, not for how others think they look.”

This reminded me of a sentiment Lena Dunham expressed just a few months ago when, while talking to ESPN about how she came to embrace fitness (something she was very much not into before), she said, “When we do exercise, when we really own and understand our bodies and claim our physicality, our superficial quibbles with our bodies lessen because we realize what our bodies can do for us.”

They both make a good point about what motivates us to be healthy and fit, and a point we don’t hear all that often, that I thought was worth pointing out: We should all be in awe of our bodies, not because of how they look, but because they manage to get us through marathons and UFC fights and deceptively difficult Lithe Method classes, and life in general. That’s impressive. And consciously reminding ourselves of how impressive our bodies are, both for what they can do for us physically and mentally (hi, endorphins), and valuing that, can serve as serious fitness motivation — even more so than the drive to look good in your new leather-look leggings from Zara.

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