New Year’s is upon us, and you know the drill: Make that resolution to lose 20 pounds, trade those burgers for kale-and-quinoa salads and chisel that six-pack. But wait, you need a little advice first, right? Which protein shakes? How to do a push-up without injuring yourself? This week, we grabbed a couple of titles for both her and him.
For the guy who wants to look like an underwear ad, Men’s Health beckons with Mark Wahlberg on its cover. Not that the six-page spread inside, titled “The Fighter,” is packed with fascinating fitness tips. Instead, the juiciest bits come in the form of gossipy barbs, which, it must be said, can veer toward the rude.
Wahlberg is not “going all Val Kilmer in middle age,” the men’s mag promises as it reveals that his obviously spoiled brat of a son was “spitting out F-bombs and going crazy” during last year’s Super Bowl.
The piece gets even classier when the movie star takes a call from his real agent, who, as in “Entourage,” is named Ari.
“Okay, is this gonna happen or is this an Ari special?” Wahlberg asks mega-agent Ari Emanuel over the phone “with a sly grin” — a staged putdown that we nevertheless enjoyed.
Elsewhere, a feature titled “New Year, New Dick” chronicles one man’s stem cell-infused journey to a bigger penis.
“It’s a procedure that poses serious risks (permanent limp dick), promises great upside (harder erections, increased size) and has little published data to support doing something so extreme to your manhood,” the brave author advises.
It’s painful even to read about it. But crucially, his wife appreciates the results.
“I like it even better,” she says, before acknowledging she’s not entirely sure why. “Maybe because he started grooming himself down there.”
So what’s Women’s Health’s answer to Marky Mark? A cover story on Maria Menounos. The former E! News co-anchor had a brain tumor operation last June, and along with it came the usual epiphanies.
“I had plenty of time to think,” Menounos says. “Like: Why do I work 20 hours a day? When you look back, have you really lived? Have you enjoyed your life? Or were you on your phone the whole time?”
The piece builds to the inevitable climax, which shows TV’s one-time gossip queen can still put a smiley face on anything: “Would you believe me if I told you that the brain tumor is the best thing that ever happened to me?”
Elsewhere, Women’s Health makes the bold move to drop the picture-perfect fitness models in its monthly section, “15-minute Workout.” Instead, the magazine from now on will feature “readers of various body types and sizes,” writes editor-in-chief Amy Keller Laird.
In this issue, we get a model who — like us — is a little roomy around the hips, but — unlike us — is looking in fine form as she demonstrates intimidating moves like the “rotational skater hop” and the “alternating knee-in and press.” We must say, we found it a bit inspirational.
The new, real-world kick accompanies WH’s just-launched #IAmFit campaign, which seeks to reduce confusion between body weight and body fat.
“You can’t tell anybody’s fitness status by looking at their body,” advises physiologist Linda Bacon. “The only thing you can judge by looking at somebody’s body is your level of prejudice.”
We’ll be watching to see whether the magazine makes good on this commitment, or whether it turns out to be just another fizzled New Year’s resolution.
Please, pity for yoga terrorist?
The New Yorker profiles several of the 120,000 kids who came to our country illegally without parents from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala between 2014 and 2016.
Elsewhere, we get stories that the magazine’s Park Slope readership can more easily relate to, although they might find them all the more horrifying. Take the seven-page profile of French author Leila Slimani, whose new book “Chanson Douce” delves into the darker recesses of motherhood, telling the story of a nanny who kills a middle-class family’s two kids.
In her conclusion, Lauren Collins writes that such stories are a sore consequence of the “commodification” of our most intimate relationships. Hear, hear and please pass the baby sitter app.
New York hashes through the lurid details of how Hurricane Maria is still ravaging Puerto Rico. But what’s even more opaque than a tropical squall line is the feature on Reality Winner, the curiously named NSA leaker whom it brands the “world’s biggest terrorist.”
This odd, tongue-in-cheek treatment is all about how Winner — a Texan who, we are told, has a “Pikachu bedspread” — does not fit the profile of a typical terrorist. She dreamed of joining the Air Force but ended up advocating for neglected children. And she’s doing yoga and teaching herself Latin in jail now. All in all, it’s really, really sad what’s happened to this fascinating woman and her family, the reporter seems to think. Far less interesting to the reporter, it seems, is the fact that she endangered national security.
Time’s cover is on four female stars, including Oprah, in the upcoming movie “A Wrinkle in Time.” There is also a profile of Nobel Peace Prize winner Beatrice Fihn, who, at 35 years old, is director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. There’s also a story on the woman who is prime minister of New Zealand.
Seems like Time is running the articles it didn’t have room for in its last issue, which named #MeToo silence breakers Person of the Year.