A warning, I will sound like an asshole in this post, but this woman should have let this one go. If you are reading this and are overweight or obese please don’t think in any way that I believe it is your fault alone for your weight. There are lots of reasons why people are overweight/obese and you can’t blame individuals for their lifestyle choices many of which are hard to control.
Basically what fueled the idea for this post was a video I saw posted on facebook.
http://www.upworthy.com/bully-calls-news-anchor-fat-news-anchor-destroys-him-on-live-tv?g=2&c=mrp1
All the comments were like “this is so powerful, thanks for posting.” I think it’s a bunch of crap! This guy sent an obviously obese news anchor an email suggesting that she consider her role as local TV personality (as it is quite influential) and present and promote a healthy lifestyle. The email wasn't even that nasty. Here it is:
“It’s unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn't improved for many years. Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.”
Granted, I don’t think sending this email was necessary, and I don’t believe obesity is a personal choice. People don’t seem to like being fat, why on earth would they choose to be that way? Surely if the obesity epidemic was as simple as a personal choice, everyone would choose to be skinny.
What irks me is the way this woman dealt with this email. She spent 4 minutes and 20 seconds of air time meant for the news calling out this writer as a bully. Bullying, I would argue is repeated attacks on someone “weaker.” After her 4 min 20 sec rant, I was under the impression this was a first time attack and an email is generally a private (until you air it on TV) and non-confrontational form of communication, different from “trolling” a phenomena of repeated anonymous attacks on the internet.
She should have just let it go instead of proclaiming to her audience that she had a thick skin and that man’s words meant nothing to her. Well obviously they meant nothing to you if you construed him as a bully in order to tie in your rant with national anti-bullying month.
What the guy said is true, she is in an influential position, and obesity is a dangerous condition. Everyone is getting fatter, even skinny people are heavier than they were 50 years ago. In effect, our perception of overweight and obesity is skewed and becoming normalized. I’ll bet you didn’t initially think she was obese, but she admitted it live on TV.
So its ok to be fat, but it’s definitely not ok to smoke. How come we’re allowed to call people out on smoking but not on being overweight? Both are pretty equally destructive to your health, the main difference probably being, you don’t need to smoke to survive whereas you do need to eat.
You just need to eat real food and less of it. The reason I say real food, is because I believe Western Society’s problem (actually it’s global) with obesity is the overabundance of fake food. Fake food is anything over processed, and by over processed I mean you don’t know what all the ingredients are on the nutrition label. A recent study looked at a hunter gatherer African tribe and measured their daily energy expenditure and found that it didn’t differ significantly from the average westerner. The tribe inhabitants were lean and had less body fat than the average westerner suggesting that diet may play more of an important role in weight gain rather than physical inactivity. Here’s the article:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503
Being physically active does play a role in weight loss tho, if you need to lose weight you should still exercise, but maybe pay a bit more attention to what you put in your mouth. Try cooking. Like old fashioned raw ingredients from the produce section of the grocery store. Many American’s don’t know how to do this (myself included) so it’s easy to see why it’s easy and convenient to pick up ready-made meals, carry out and unhealthy snacks. Luckily, I have a fiancé who does know how to cook and in this last year combined with a bunch of walking I’ve lost 10 pounds. I didn’t really need to lose those 10 pounds, but I’m not complaining! I’m down to my 16 year old driver’s license weight and the major difference in my lifestyle is that I started eating regular freshly prepared, balanced meals.
I walked just as much in Chile and gained weight. To be fair my diet in Chile was atrocious because fresh fruits and vegetables were left out. I walked a lot in College as well, but again my diet of booze probably caused me to put on weight.
Circling back to this woman who claims not to be offended but really is and took news time to air her grievances and loosely link them to national anti-bullying month; I hope this whole ordeal has made her think about making small sustainable changes to her diet/exercise routine. Honestly, I don’t think the person meant for her to take such offense; or bully her. I think he was just trying to give her a little nudge in the right direction. He probably could have phrased it more eloquently though as she definitely didn’t interpret it that way.
