Body Beautiful

I was walking back from the local shop, heavily laden with carrier bags of food and goodies when I heard a voice behind me call my name.

I turned, not actually recognising the voice and therefore a bit apprehensive about who knew me.

I had, after all, recently moved house to a new part of the city and was not aware of any acquaintances in the local area.

It was someone I had been at school with some miles away and 25 years ago. Our paths had not crossed in the intervening quarter of a century.

We exchanged greetings and had one of those frenetic over-talking catch-up briefings. Familiarity made it feel as though we had never been separated by further education or the social and economic pressures to make something of our lives and support our dependants.

His life had included some tragedy with the passing of his son whilst only in his early twenties.

On going our separate ways, possibly for another similar period, he said in parting that he had called out because there was no mistaking my distinctive profile.

Later on, I had some thoughts on what that meant.

I was not being vain but merely curious about this physiological aspect.Just think about it. From your own viewpoint you will have a completely different perception of yourself than others. There are certain physical features of your own anatomy that you just cannot see, namely a back view, side aspect, even a full frontal.

In my minds-eye I still have the body shape that I had in my twenties and yet, now in my early 50's my physique has apparently broadened into a bulky upper torso, slightly protuberant belly, expanded waistline and chunky legs.

There is a creeping realisation of this age related expansion in the need to buy the next size up of trouser, suit jacket and collar in one of those rare clothes shopping trips prompted by a business event, family wedding or the funeral of an acquaintance.

I have not found it easy to accept such changes in my body shape and find myself either toying with the latest diet or simply taking a sharp inward breath to give the impression of being trim and fit. I make a point of exercising regularly and do quite a few miles trailing well behind my son on his lightweight road racing bike but yet the excess weight remains stubbornly in place.

A coping strategy is to constantly compare myself with current athletes and sportsmen and I have developed a rather obsessive fascination with the height, weight and body mass index of my longstanding heroes in order to see how I compare.

Such information was previously only disclosed on such things as magazine profiles and Top Trump cards but it now very much in the public domain and particularly so where individuals are keen to counter rumour and conjecture of for example, doping, arising from exceptional and super-human performances.

My insecurity on body shape matters has been crystallised  over the last couple of weeks by the sight and achievements of the athletes at the Rio Olympic Games.

I, understandably, feel old and overweight.

This has not been helped by the BBC. Their on-line media coverage includes what they may regard as a fun exercise to allow viewers to input their height, weight and age. An algorithm then computes this information against their database of the 10,000 participants at the 2016 Games and matches it to specific athletes and their sporting disciplines.

I was both curious and nervous about disclosing what I regard as quite intimate details but did it anyway.

I am one metre and seventy five centimetres tall or as I understand it five feet ten. My weight yo-yo's quite alarmingly over a typical year but is, ideally, ninety kilograms or however many equivalent bags of flour.

Adding my date of birth I pressed the enter key.

It appears that I am the same height as 482 ( around 5%) of the Olympic competitors although the actual range is pretty wide with the smallest, a Brazilian Gymnast at 1,33metres and a Chinese Basketball Player at towering 2,18m.

On the more sensitive issue of weight I have been lumped in with a mere 133 athletes (About 1%) .Again the Olympians have a huge weight range from the same diminuitve Brazilian lady at just over 31kg to a hefty 170 kg Rumanian martial arts player.

The matching process on my age is a bit disappointing although not unexpected.

Happily I share a birthday with 25 temporary residents of Rio de Janeiro but there are only six individuals who are my actual age.

The actual age spread is quite amazing from a 13 year old Nepalese swimmer to a senior citizen of bus pass eligibility in the equestrian competition. The average age of participants in this Games is 26.

The whole point of exposing my lack of self confidence through this statistical exercise was to get some affirmation that I am not on the scrapheap in sporting or general terms. My matches?

There were no real surprises having been an avid viewer of just about every Olympic event.

I am the body double for a Kenyan Judo player called Kiplangat Sang, an Iranian wrestler by the name of Habibollah Jomeh Akhlaghi and most satisfyingly, given my lifetime love of riding my bike, a Canadian Track Cyclist, Hugo Barrette.

I have not bothered to find out how these individuals fared in their respective contests as I feel quite content to be very loosely associated with their endeavours, trials and tribulations.