Far from the model bodies on Love Island triggering my insecurities, I find they motivate me to up my own game

This is actually a good year so far, with much saltier characters than the dreariness of last year. The girls seem less concerned with what the boys are feeling and more concerned with what they’re feeling themselves — which is refreshing and a much better watch.

I’m sure, at some stage, there’ll be the annual blow-up over gaslighting, triggering, red flags or a rake of other nasty, manipulative behaviours — that have been around forever, but we’ve given them new names so they seem like modern phenomena — for which the show has previously been slammed.

It’s true that it exploits people’s hearts and messes with their heads for entertainment. Although the producers have increased the mental health supports and media training provided, islanders really need to think about what they’re letting themselves in for. But, despite its obvious flaws, I find that, psychologically, it mimics politics or sport — which are more ‘respected’ forms of people-watching. Anthropologically, it’s weirdly absorbing. I suspect that those who dismiss Love Island as tripe either haven’t actually watched it, or just can’t get past the ‘body beautiful’ aspect of it.

Because, of course, one of the major criticisms of the show is that it presents unrealistic standards of physical perfection — with all the ‘ripped’ gym bodies and the surgical enhancements that could cause potential insecurities or even body dysmorphia in vulnerable viewers. Apparently demand for lip fillers and boob jobs shoots up in the UK during its run.

I find the body-beautiful aspect oddly motivating. Don’t get me wrong, I have zero desire for or expectation of achieving a 25-year-old’s Barbie-esque body. However, as I sat on a spin bike while catching up Love Island earlier today, it dawned on me that every year when it’s on, I up my game from an exercise point of view. I generally walk, cycle, lift weights and swim more than usual during Love Island’s run. I hadn’t joined those dots previously. I don’t do it feeling in any way bad about myself, either. I just think, “Oh yeah, holidays are coming. I’ll be in a bikini; maybe it’s time I also got up off my ass a bit more.”

If I do that, do other people do it too? I completely understand that I’m not 17 or vulnerable, but there is more than one way to react to seeing model types in swimwear, and generally I feel it gives me a push I quite like. Not everyone who watches Love Island is crippled with insecurities; not everyone hates on themselves when they watch.

We have arrived at a place where someone talking about wanting to tone up or lose weight has become almost socially unacceptable for fear of upsetting other people. However, I suspect lots of people want to do both of those things all the same.

A second opinion

I read with interest a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal that said it’s ageist and sexist to view the menopause as a deficiency requiring HRT and we shouldn’t medicalise a natural process. Instead, the female writers argued, women should view it as freeing them from periods and pregnancy.

Reading it, I was struck, not for the first time, by how my profession still finds it difficult to accept that women don’t need to be told how they should view their own physical experiences. I recall, in my early days as a medic, a consultant saying we shouldn’t medicalise labour with pain relief. “We should allow women to really feel what’s happening.”

I was infuriated. Yes, it’s natural — but so is toothache. Women want to get on and live their lives and brain fog, mood swings, sex problems, sweats and flushes interfere with that. Menopausal women in the main want support in alleviating those things and improving their quality of life.

There is a supremely arrogant undertone to this ‘doctor knows best’ twaddle that I hoped was dying. Transdermal HRT is extremely safe, women want it and that should be the end of it.