I first encountered the insanity of a distorted body image about 10 years ago, a few months after my final college football-playing days.

I was in the weight room doing what young athletic boys with too much time and testosterone are prone to do: finishing up a 31/2-hour workout. (Hey, I was nuts, but the six-times-a-week routine helped me maintain a 31-inch waist and a percentage body fat lower than the average grilled chicken breast, all while allowing me to eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts guilt- and weight-gain free.)

In walks a former teammate who hadn’t been seen in those parts since the end of the season. He smelled like bacon, waffles and burned butts meat. He looked like he was weeks away from giving birth. Some wise guy patted his belly and flashed a mischievous smile.

“What, you can see that?” my former teammate asked, shocked that an oversize cotton T-shirt wasn’t enough to hide a stomach that entered rooms five paces before he did.

The weight room exploded in laughter. I didn’t laugh. I’ve always been taught to respect those burdened with potbellies.

My self-image isn’t distorted.

So what if I found comfort from all the men who thanked me recently for fighting against the stupidity of the government’s Body Mass Index, which labels everyone this side of Olive Oyl overweight or obese – including your humble columnist, who left behind his 31-inch waist 5,000 doughnuts ago.

So what if I audibly cheered after reading a headline in the New York Times – “A little extra heft may help, a new study finds” – because it revealed that being overweight by the government’s standards saved 86,094 lives while being underweight led to 33,746 deaths.

So what if I occasionally get caught up in the illusion that I still need the body I had 10 years ago – one I used to elude 240-pound, muscle-bound linebackers in a quest for touchdown glory – and on Saturday mornings run 11 miles to prove that I still have it, not knowing quite what “it” is anymore.

Naw, I don’t run like that, until my legs feel as though they are better suited to carry a rooster around the barnyard than move my 230-pound frame another inch, because I have a distorted body image.

There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation why I run like that and suck in my gut while naked and alone in front of a mirror: I’m training to become America’s Next Top Supermodel.

There’s no distorted body image in this head.