Sometimes it pays to live in the South — other times, not so much.

In the November 2009 issue of Self, they took a look at the 100 Healthiest Places for Women. The further you go down the list, the less healthy the women in that particular location are.

Unless you count Washington D.C/Virgina area , Raleigh, NC or Palm Beach as the Deep South (so, yummy home cooking), the first Southern location on there is Austin.

Granted, their rational for ranking is a little whack. It’s based off of a few numbers like:

• The number of individuals who die of cancer
• The smoke rate among women
• The cleanliness of water
• Fatal car accidents (?? how does that make a place more healthy? Safer, yes. Healthy, no. You could be the healthiest person in the world and still get into a car wreck.)
• How many ob/gyns per capita
• Access to birth control and abortions (?? Once again, how does this make a place “healthy”? Just because I can get an abortion if I want to doesn’t make me — or my city — any less healthier than one that does)

In my opinion, the rankings should have also included:

• Number of public parks/trails
• Number of local gyms/YMCA programs
• Obesity rates among adults and children
• Health-related school programs
• City-sponsored fitness/health programs

At the end of the day, it seems like an arbitrary list (I would love to see how they did the ranking process). I mean, look at the description for San Francisco. One of the reasons is that you sleep better in San Francisco. Uh, really? Never discount shut-eye, as it is an important bodily function, but geebus. I sleep great every night and I attribute that to my Tempur-Pedic bed, not the city I live in.

I’m not entirely shocked about Dallas (#69) and Houston’s (#79) ranking. AND super not surprised by the San Antonio (#87) or El Paso’s ranking. The Tex-Mex in those towns alone makes it worth it to die of a heart attack at the age of 30. OMG, queso. Mmmmm.

Point is, there are several things you can do to lead a healthier life — despite where you live. Let’s run through them really quick:

• Eat Well. In my opinion, this is the most important thing you can do for yourself. If you didn’t work out, you can still be relatively healthy if you ate nothing but fruits, vegetables and lean meats. But because we don’t, you also need to…
• Work Out. Opinions vary with every new report that comes out, so I’ll just tell you what I try to do: I do some type of cardio exercise (get my heart rate above 130) for an hour three times a week. It’s hard to do, but makes up for the @fatroll fails I have when not eating well.
• Go to the doctor regularly. That means an annual physical (get your blood work done peeps), an annual visit to the dermatologist (especially if you have fair skin), twice-yearly visits to the dentist, and a once-a-year check-up with the OB/GYN. Don’t have insurance or can’t afford those visits? Your city (and the City of Austin) has programs available to help you find affordable solutions.
• Be smart. We can all be pretty dumb (I definitely have my moments), but try to avoid the following: drinking alcohol often (it can make you fat and in large quantities is bad for you), visiting tanning beds (I need to beat down my 18-year-old self… fair is fab people!) and read articles on the latest trends around eating and exercising (you may find that you can eat more for fewer calories and do more for your muscles in less time).
• Pass it on. One of the reasons I love this site is that we’ve motivated other people to do analyze how they live their lives. I call it good karma, which means I can enjoy a brownie now and again. Did you recently start living a healthier life? Share it with  your family and friends — especially those that need extra encouragement to do the same. They’ll thank you later, and you can enjoy that brownie knowing you did your part.

So, that’s it. Regardless of what town you live in, do your part and spread the good @fatroll karma to someone else.

Okay readers. We’re on a mission. The @fatroll ladies think we have a good and inspiring story to tell – especially if we survive this final month. While we’re not individuals losing 100+ pounds, weight loss in general is hard no matter what you weigh.

So this week, we’d love for you to help us get noticed and share the @fatroll story– and hopefully motivate others to lose weight too!

We’ve just submitted the four of us to be featured in an upcoming SELF article. If they don’t bite, we’ll just move onto another publication because we reada lot of the mags. BUT we think we have a great tale to tell – someone has to notice!!

Here’s how you can help this week, dearest readers:

• E-mail SELF:
  • http://www.self.com/contact/emailus
• Tweet @SELFMagazine:
  • RT us (@fatroll) or send a separate tweet asking @SELFMagazine to consider us for an inspiring tell (even though I sort of told them to shove it because of the Kelly Clarkson cover… hey, we were just being honest – and they can rectify it by showing REAL women… sans Photoshop!)
• Share @fatroll with others
  • Spreading the love is the sincerest form of flattery! Even if none of the magazines care about us, we like that you do.

 Thanks in advance and wish us luck!

You may recall a few weeks ago, I did an analysis on singer Kelly Clarkson and her recent (or not so recent) weight gain.

I guess a week or so after I wrote that, she was featured on the cover of Self Magazine looking skinnier than her Idol days, despite the fact she was photographed earlier that month at a Good Morning America concert looking much bigger.

What followed was a botched attempt at damage control by the Self editor-in-chief, Lucy Danziger on the Today Show and Self’s blog network (thanks @maryamelia28 for flagging this a few weeks ago for us).

For a magazine that “promotes” confidence and looking your best no matter what, trying to justify Photoshop is absolutely ridiculous AND the reason why young girls (and people like myself) have such unrealistic expectations about what they should look like.

Read this contradicting piece of information from the editor herself:

Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best. Did we publish an act of fiction? No. Not unless you think all photos are that. But in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand. I love her spirit and her music and her personality that comes through in our interview in SELF. She is happy in her own skin, and she is confident in her music, her writing, her singing, her performing. That is what we all relate to. Whether she is up or down in pounds is irrelevant (and to set the record straight, she works out and does boot-camp-style training, so she is as fit as anyone else we have featured in SELF). Kelly says she doesn’t care what people think of her weight. So we say: That is the role model for the rest of us.

So, if she truly exudes confidence, works out just as hard as anyone else featured in the magazine AND she doesn’t care what people think of her weight, why on earth did you not publish the original photo as-is? The editor also claims that the silk blouse she was wearing on the cover was quite unforgiving… then put her in something else!! How insulting that her “personal best” isn’t even really her.

Point being, you have a responsibility to your readers to truly advocate what you preach in your articles. Instead, you look like a bunch of hypocrites. The editor goes so far to say that she had her marathon finisher photo re-touched because she didn’t like the way her hips look. You just ran 26.2 miles, idiot. No one looks particularly glamorous after that. BE HAPPY IN YOUR OWN SKIN.  Also, be sure read the comments in her blog post where the editor gets ripped a new one by readers. It’s awesome.

And I’m not buying Self again.

A magazine I will be purchasing moving forward? Glamour because of its awesome portrayal of what is now known as the Page 194 Girl. Late last week, a 3×3 inch photo of a woman named Lizzie Miller was on page 194 in this month’s issue of Glamour and it set the blogosphere abuzz. Dressed only in underwear, this woman looks NORMAL. I don’t think I’ve seen a portrait like this since nude posing in the 18^th century. She has a pooch, her thighs aren’t the size of a Barbie – it’s incredibly refreshing to see a real woman photographed. And she’s smiling and beautiful.

Better yet, compare the comments in the blog post by Glamour’s editor to Self’s. It’s clear that women (and men) have had enough of ridiculous expectations of female beauty. And her appearance on the Today show was awesome, calling her appearance in Glamour “a game changer” for the industry.

Even classic supermodels like Cindy Crawford and photographers like Peter Lindbergh are sick of airbrushing, photoshopping and the like. In the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Crawford, Amber Valletta, Helena Christensen and Claudia Schiffer are all photographed without any retouching. Dang. That is true beauty. And really good photography – which seems to be lost since the advent of Photoshop.

So what is the lesson in all of this? Be proud of your body and don’t let anyone else tell you differently. Yes, if you need to lose weight – do it to be healthy, not to adhere to the ridiculous standards set forth by advertisers/publishing industry. You’ll spend too much time being unhappy and not enough time treasuring the gorgeous you.