Women, Sport, and Film - 2002
Student Papers
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Meredith Jason
Women, Sport, and Film Course
March 8, 2002
Question 3

The Six-Week Challenge
A Movie Script Submitted to the Department of Athletics

Jennifer is a twenty-year-old college student struggling with body image issues. She is a size eight. She has never developed an interest in athletics and has never exercised in her life. She has no muscle tone and has a high body fat percentage. Jennifer is not confident about her body. She wants to be ?skinny? and is constantly dieting. Instead of eating healthy and balanced meals, she skips meals often. When she does eat, she eats only fried foods like French fries and hamburgers and refuses to eat fruits and vegetables.

Samantha is Jennifer?s best friend in college. She is an athlete. She is a runner and a weight lifter. She is training for the Boston Marathon, her second marathon, that is three months away. She runs for an hour three days a week and on the weekends runs for longer distances. She also weight lifts three times a week in the gym. Samantha is very confident and is in the best shape of her life. She eats a lot of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. She has very defined muscles and a low body fat percentage.

Jennifer admires Samantha?s discipline in exercise and healthy eating, but she resists exercising and eating well. She is afraid to become too muscular and develop a manly physique. Jennifer strives to look like a supermodel, not like an athlete. Samantha encourages Jennifer to go to the gym to weight lift with her but Jennifer refuses. Jennifer lacks motivation and is not interested in participating in ?masculine? activities like bodybuilding. After months of coercing, Samantha finally convinces Jennifer to go to the gym with her. Jennifer succumbs because she hopes to meet some hot guys at the gym. Samantha convinces Jennifer to go to the gym with her three days a week for six weeks. After that, if she does not like it, Samantha will never bother her again about taking up an exercise regime.

When Jennifer arrives for the first time at the gym, she is surprised to see how many women are working out with weights. Half of the people weightlifting are women. Jennifer also observes that the majority of women have very feminine physiques. They are muscular, lean, and have very attractive figures. Jennifer was expecting to see very few women weightlifting. In addition, she expected those women to be very muscular and masculine looking. Jennifer feels very comfortable in the gym. Before she arrived, she was afraid to be only one of a few women in the gym. She is now eager to try the machines. At first, Jennifer feels awkward using the weights, but she gets through the session with the help of Samantha.

The next day, Jennifer feels very sore. Her body aches. Although, she wants to give up going to the gym, she made a promise to Samantha to try it out for six weeks and she decides to continue to push through. She pushes out thoughts of sleeping late and missing workouts from her mind and religiously goes to the gym three days a week for six weeks with Samantha. After a month, Jennifer starts to see results. She has lost body fat and can feel her biceps when she flexes, something she could not before working out. Jennifer feels better about herself and her body. She is more confident. She realizes that her attempts to lose weight by starvation were futile. Jennifer is also enjoying working out. She has more energy and loves feeling the burn when lifting weights. In addition, Jennifer has made several bodybuilding friends at the gym. She learns that men prefer athletic women with muscle to skinny supermodels lacking shape and definition. Jennifer also has developed a stronger friendship with Samantha. Jennifer comes to admire and truly appreciate the dedication and hard work Samantha has for athletics.

By the end of the six-week trial period, Jennifer transforms her weak body into a strong one and sedentary lifestyle into an active one. After successfully completing Samantha?s challenge to stick to exercising for six weeks, Jennifer strives to tackle her own goal?to run the Boston Marathon along with Samantha in six weeks.
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