An interesting thing happened at the gym today.
I was taking a spinning class and a thin, beautiful woman came into the class late and hopped onto a bicycle. We have many actors and actresses at this gym and if she had a career on-camera, she chose right. She was African American, tall, lean and stunning. Everyone looked at her. She was wearing a fitting outfit of shorts and a tank top.
A few seats away from her was a woman struggling on her bicycle who I would describe as obese, maybe borderline morbidly obese.
Throughout the rest of the class, someone else in the class and the teacher helped the thin woman re-set her bicycle. She got attention whether she was asking for it or not.
Meanwhile, the obese woman who seemed to have the wrong set-up on her bicycle struggled and accepted the set-up on the bike. No one helped her, not another classmate and not the teacher.
Thin garners respect and attention. Obese does not.
I really am starting to think that everyone, even overweight or obese people, hate other people who are fat. Whether that behavior is conscious or subconscious is unknown. But there it is.
Society judges obesity. Even the CDC judges obesity. Everyone judges obesity whether they realize it or not. What's the answer?
Look at this article from Philadelphia Magazine saying we need to shame the obese. Really?
Society is already shaming people who are obese. It's not working to truly help people lose weight.
Glamour even says that women judge women. No kidding... women are the hardest on other women.
If someone really wants to lose weight, they will lose weight. They will buckle down, go to the gym and track the food they eat on My Fitness Pal or another site. They will join a weight loss group or adopt a new lifestyle plan. But bullying, shaming and judging each other does not produce results.
We all need to be a little more supportive of each other no matter our size.
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