Liz Jones: Who are you?

I have just read this Daily Mail article written by Liz Jones that has been flooding my twitter timeline for the last couple of hours 'Sinewy arms are NOT a good thing - and neither is sport'

Liz Jones: Daily Mail columnist. Interesting fact: Stole her ex-husbands sperm to try and get pregnant (bye bye credibility)

I will start by saying I too have arms that you don't get unless you play sport and in my opinion they show to someone on the outside how much work I have put it and anyone that says they are repulsive obviously has no respect or understanding of athletes and how much we put our bodies through striving to be the best.

I am utterly shocked that Daily Mail ran this story; the author obviously has no clue about sport at any level, but in particular elite sport. For someone whose favourite lesson at school was always P.E. of course I am going to defend it's necessity in the curriculum. In my view without exposure to sports, children cannot see their brilliance or reward to be deemed. How many world class athletes might have never realised they were talented without being given the opportunity to try different activities?

There are so many life skills that are to be learnt from school P.E. Team sports force cohesion between individuals and groups who have not chosen the situation, mimicking how working in the real world is more often that not. As part of a team you have a role and the other members of your team are relying on you to fulfil this and support them in their role also.

In an era where Britain is one of the most overweight nations in the world, promoting exercise had to be a priority. Too many young people see the only way to lose weight as dieting, but as the author points out herself in another recent article (The price I'm paying for hating my body) that this is dangerous and has serious consequences to long term health. I am in no way encouraging unhealthy eating, just a balanced diet containing enough calories, fats and vitamins/minerals for our body to function as it is intended to. Exercise is such an important component to a healthy lifestyle and it's saddening to hear someone with a voice, that could be heard so widely, condemning ALL sport due to their own bad experiences in school and their dislike of women who break the stick thin ideal of today's world.

My next erk is when she suggests athletes should 'spent their time more productively: reading perhaps, or studying maths'. What would I get out of studying maths? I already have a numerate degree...oh, she thought we were all stupid and couldn't possibly be intellectual (academia is not the only stream of intelligence either). If she were to take the time to talk to any athletes before writing this ill informed article, she would have found the majority of athletes do things outside of sport to stimulate them mentally. Whether this be to read, have an interest in politics, the arts, world affairs...the list is endless but shows we are not the apes she makes us out to be.

I am not even going to discuss whether or not female athletes should want to look like Fatima Whitbread; most current athletes strive for muscular tone like that let alone one who has been retired so many years and that leaves no discussion on that point.

Overall, I think Liz Jones should steer clear from writing about topics she clearly knows nothing about and stick to the entertainment she usually writes about. Although from comments on this article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2070029/X-Factor-2011-scenes-LIZ-JONES-goes-inside-X-Factory.html) it doesn't seem people think she knows much about that either.

Maybe the Daily Mail might see the err in it's ways and think twice before publishing such derogatory and ill informed articles in the future...we can only hope!