Media Watch

Media Watch is a new series exploring how stories relating to female muscle are reported in the English-speaking world's mainstream media.

FMS was delighted that the very first UK article to come to the attention of our Media Watch team in 2014 was one that was nothing but positive about the benefits of weight training for women. The article, in the 'Life' section in the online version of the Express newspaper, promised 'a bodybuilding champ' would be explaining how 'heartbreak' had 'inspired' her. Now the accompanying picture didn't make it look as if we really were about to read about a bodybuilding champ as you or I would understand the word, but in the UK media, you take what you can get. We read on...



This time last year, Rachel Evans, a 43-year-old PA from South London explained, I'd just got engaged. I was living in a big house in Essex, driving around in expensive cars and dining in the best restaurants. But was she happy? No! On the surface it looked as if I had the perfect life. I was supposed to be happy but in reality I was far from it. I knew the relationship wasn't working and had tried to leave him before but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it. So when he asked me to marry him just after Christmas when we'd been together for a year I said yes. But just a week later, Rachel was packing her car and leaving her fiancé.

And this change in her life led to another. I suffered from anorexia as a teenager and keeping fit helped me overcome my eating disorder. I had lifted weights before and had always been interested in bodybuilding but I hadn't had the opportunity to try it.



The opportunity arrived, the article continued, when Rachel was introduced to the forgotten IFBB pro of British bodybuilding, the 6'2" (that's 1 full inch taller than FMS' own 6ft1swell, or, if you'd rather, 1.88m) Sarah Bridges, who was last seen at the 2013 New York Pro show as a physique competitor, three full years after her previous show as a bodybuilder.

From February to September I trained rigorously with Sarah and could see my body changing on a weekly basis, said Rachel. I became leaner and more toned than ever and developed a six-pack. My body fat went down to 10% and I began to look and feel like a proper athlete.

Now, before we get to the happy ending, I want you to remember that last bit because it's going to be VERY important later: My body fat went down to 10% and I began to look and feel like a proper athlete. Got that? 10% body fat, looking and feeling like a 'proper athlete'.



Back to Rachel. My dream was to compete in a bodybuilding competition and in October I won the Bikini Diva Champion Total Fitness title. That was my second competition and I was absolutely ecstatic.

So, woman finds self-esteem through weight training at a low point in her life, and meanwhile conquers her eating disorder once and for all. That's the kind of story I like to post, I thought to myself. OK, so she's 'only' a bikini competitor, which might disgruntle a few readers, but like I said before, you take what you can get in the UK media. And I can even give a long overdue nod to Sarah Bridges on the way.

Satisfied, I ran the story past our legendary editor, JJ Musclesucker.

Play up the Bridges angle to keep the muscle fans happy and you've got yourself the go ahead, he told me. Lovely. I began to research this Rachel Evans. I found her old website, where she publicised her makeover, personal shopping and bridal make-up businesses. Her new website, also called MakeOverEssex, was all about Rachel Evans the bikini competitor and sponsored athlete.



And then I came across a story originally from The Sun newspaper from way back in 2009. There was Rachel. And there was Madonna. And the headline for the story was "I wish I'd never tried to get a body like Madonna".

Remember what Rachel said about her 10% body fat this January? That it was only when she had achieved it that she had started to 'look and feel like a proper athlete'? Well, the Rachel Evans from the 2009 article had quite a different point of view...

I have a body fat ratio of about 10% so all the muscles and veins in my arms show up more clearly and prominently than if I was weightier. I have to hide my veiny hands by wearing leather gloves after a workout or if I’m going out in the evening. Only the other day I was painting a ceiling and was struck by the thick, blue vein running from my bicep to the corner of my wrist. It’s not attractive.

Rachel v.2009 also talks about how her breasts disappeared as her body fat ratio fell, how this made her feel 'like a little boy', and led to her getting new boobs. It was the surgery, not the weight training, that made her feel better... and more body-confident.



Don't worry, I'm not about to have a massive rant about the hypocrisy of it all. To be honest, I don't think Rachel is really being hypocritical at all. It seems to me that back in 2009, as now, Rachel Evans is in the business of getting publicity for Rachel Evans. In the past she needed the publicity to attract clients to her various services. Now, perhaps the services she offers are different and she attracts publicity for the benefit of her sponsors as well as for herself, but it's all the same game.

What's interesting to me is this. How does Rachel, fitness fanatic and Madonna fan, get herself into a national newspaper in 2009? By riding in on the back of a general press outcry at how bad Madonna's 'gristly' arms were looking, and by being negative about the effects of her fitness regime. But how does the same woman get herself into the national media five years' later? By being nothing but positive about her 'new' weight training self.

In the end, that's the story this ended up being. Same woman, same body fat percentage, telling a very different story about her life of fitness to the story she had told five years ago. Then, the national media were only too happy to accommodate her disgust at her own sinewy self, but now things are different. Now, they want a positive angle on weight training, they want a life transformed for the better, they want to hear about female empowerment through muscle building.

Enjoy!