[quote]debraD wrote:
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:
I’m 5’11", I used to be 200kg and have been down to 90kg and now hover around 100kg and usually keep my abs visible. So I’ve done kinda the two extremes.
[/quote]
That is seriously fucking impressive, much respect.
Body image in society is something I’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately. I like to take care of my body as much as anyone else but I think these ‘anti-fat’ threads are pointless and arrogant. Unless someone is seriously obese, I really don’t notice it about them, and I’d much rather be with a girl that carried a bit of meat than a fucking stick insect.
I’ve become disgusted with the images of ‘perfection’ the media throws at us day after day after day. They are sending a message that unless you look like that dude from Twilight(this year’s ideal look, apparently) or Megan Fox, then you aren’t good enough.
Personality and intelligence are being stamped out to make way for ‘hawt abz’ or a ‘toned belly’. Stomach fat is seen as the devil. Combine this with the amount of shitty, processed food that is so cheap and so easy to and live on and the throw in the misinformation that is hurled at people by the fitness industry(the stuff highlighted in the ‘misinforative video’ thread) and it’s no wonder there are so many overweight people out there.
But the images of what a person ‘should’ look like are so fucking perfect that anybody who is carrying a bit of excess weight starts to feel like shit about themselves(the same seems to apply to seriously underweight people as well).
I was talking to a pretty thin friend recently about weight training and he admitted that one problem about going weight training in the gym is that you look like an idiot when you’re a skinny guy trying to lift weights. As silly as this might seem to us I understand what he meant. I used to weigh 175lbs at 6’'0 and I admit I did feel a bit strange being a skinny guy in the weights section the first few times. A workmate confirmed the same thing.
The same thing applies to fat people. They even look out of place in the gym. When working at a gym last year I used to love to see them in there making an effort and trying but I rarely saw them return and truth be told I only ever saw 3 of them.
I couldn’t imagine how hard it is for an obese person to start exercising. The fear of ridicule must be immense. My sister’s dear friend was once a very heavy girl but in about 6 months she lost something like 150lbs and is now a chronic anorexic(hospitalised at the moment). It’s a sad situation. She wanted to lose the weight so badly she went the wrong way about and at the end of the day it’s society’s fault for equating fat=bad.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to see people in the gym and making the effort(40 year old wives trying to lose the bingo-wings or the underweight 17 year old guy trying desperately to put on a bit of mass) but it pisses me off to see people feel like shit because they don’t succumb to what’s deemed as ‘ideal’ by a clueless society.
Further more AccipiterQ, girls(for reasons I’ll never fully comprehend) are much much much more conscious of how they look and their BF% than men are. We all know this. So your friend’s obese friend probably doesn’t feel great about herself.
I’d hate to be in that situation. Over time it leads to terrible self-esteem and sadly this paradigm shows no sign of stopping.
Gah, sorry, rant over. Just something that’s been on my mind a bit lately. [/quote]
Well said.
If I didn’t create a gym at home there’s no way I would have lost weight because there is no way I was going to work out publicly.
I have a friend who has lost 60lbs since the summer and he’s ready and wanting to get into better shape and lift weights and get in some conditioning but he won’t go the gym because he doesn’t want to be a flabby weakling publicly. He also wants to go swimming but can’t bring himself to go shirtless in public. He would even take off his shirt to put on a life jacket to go tubing at the lake this summer even though I know he really badly wanted to get on the thing. You’d think after losing a bunch of weight he’d be feeling better but that isn’t the case.[/quote]
EXACTLY!
I have a friend who is newly single as her husband left her and she cannot stand the thought of going to a gym and having people look at her.
I just have sympathy for folks who are living these constrained lives. I don’t have any urge to pile bile on top of them.
Don’t we all remember high school and the mean kids? Either being the victim or being the mean kid? Unfortunately sometimes life continues to be high school mean kids and this post reeks of it.