The author, and her shapeless ankles (Courtesy Kathleen Flynn)

 

by Kathleen Flynn

I have cankles.

There, I said it.

Disparage me as you will—it’s currently all the rage to poke fun at cankles. That's the term, of course, for the strange disorder of the lower body where one's calf descends into one's foot without narrowing. (The effect is that of giving it the appearance of a doughy peg leg.

Last week, Gold’s Gym announced that July is National Cankles Awareness Month. “By the year 2012 Cankles will surpass Love Handles as the number one aesthetic affliction in the world,” Gold's states on its new Web site, Saynotocankles.com. The Wall Street Journal followed up with a front-page story, fully exposing the phenomenon of cankle-bashing. Good Morning America even ran a story about it, coyly titled “The New Muffin-Top?” It’s the worst thing that’s happened to big-ankled women like me since Hollywood debuted the silly, hybrid word “cankle” (calf-plus-ankle) in the 2001 movie Shallow Hall. (Before that, my fat ankles were my own secret shame.)

Now ankleless women everywhere are being told that we either have to get in shape or hide our mutated stumps under loose jeans and long skirts.

Along with Gold’s Gym, personal trainers throughout the blogoshpere are currently writing posts on “cankle-busting moves!” such as squats, calf raises, and walking.

I’m all for exercising, and I work out regularly. But I want to set the record straight: I'm a size zero. Cankles are not necessarily the result of eating too many snickers. For many women, they are a genetic mishap and criticizing them is akin to kicking a little person in the shin.

More on Kathleen's life with cankles, after the jump...

In 1997, when the FDA allowed prescription drug manufacturers to actuallytell people what their pills and potions did via television ads, did theyforesee the consequences? Did they anticipate the flowering of an entirely newgenre of short-form drama that would grace the airways every night throughout America,bringing tales of tragedy and heroism and wonderful pills into our livingrooms?  
Prescription drug ads are like sonnets: the artistry is constrained by therules of the form. In this case, the form demands that the stories play outquickly enough that viewers at home don't change the channel, and that a bevyof terrifying side effects be explained in a manner both informative andreassuring. And, just as you may have found the Cliff Notes helpful as youworked your way through Shakespeare's poetry in high school, so too you mightlike to have the nuances of these drug ads explicated for you. On behalf of TheHuman Condition, Josh Fruhlinger is here to help. We begin with this adfor EpiDuo.

But what does it all mean? Find out, after the jump!