What a thoughtful comment, Elsie.
I agree that we should be teaching our children to see past all exteriors and look at each person for what is on the inside, their mind and their heart. I'm about to get serious now...
As the "fat girl" in the 80's and early 90's (when childhood obesity was still pretty rare), I experienced bullying, name-calling, and belittling words on a daily basis for years on end, words that only stopped upon graduating from high school. Even after that ended though, the sorrow and broken spirit that these comments and actions helped create led me to a struggle with anxiety, disassociation, depression, suicidal thoughts, and self-hatred that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. I have slowly healed through the love of true friends, a commitment to health and fitness that is NOT based on reaching a certain weight or size, and my faith.
I despise the way I've heard these so-called professionals on
The Biggest Loser speak to people who are contestants, and their entire approach to food and exercise. I am disheartened when I see the lack of modification and moderation taught to people who so desperately need that info to succeed over the long haul. I realize that making someone climb a mountain rather than a small hill is more exciting. But these people are not Sylvester Stallone in
Rocky IV. They need to start with the hill, not the mountain! There is so much data on how much more prone to injury overweight people are likely to be. Therefore they
must be introduced to movement more carefully than someone who is thin, One cannot and should not run when they can barely walk.
There's no aim on this TV show to let people know movement can be
joyful, when we find something we love and get results from. For some people that's going to be swimming or water aerobics or gentler forms of yoga. Yet on these shows, they just want to push these people to utter exhaustion, tears, frustration...which does nothing except reinforce the idea that movement is torture. These TV producers should realize that if these people were heavy as children, they very likely experienced teasing, embarrassment, and failure in the eyes of a phys ed teacher and their fellow students. The treatment they get on the show is akin to that. Not exactly joyful, and I'm speaking as someone who knows what that shame and sense of failure feels like. I remember a doctor saying to my mother - right in front of me - "She has such a pretty face, but she needs to lose this excess weight." I was all of seven years old when this happened, and probably had fifteen extra pounds on my frame. I don't think I can express in words what that man's thoughtless comment did to my already fragile sense of self-worth. His words haunted me for a long time to come.
Strict, stringent dietary changes that are drastic and meant to entertain the public by showing how joyless dieting is...what foolishness. Rather than make sure an individual is being properly and carefully being taught about good nutrition and how it lengthens one's life and makes us feel good, or how to shop for and cook healthy food so it tastes delicious, they almost seem to want to punish these heavy people with bland food or extreme calorie cuts- strategies any sane person knows is destined to fail in the long run. This is not only irresponsible and unethical in some ways, it's unnecessarily cruel.
Fat shaming is one of the last "okay" hatreds in society. It is a hatred that spreads like wildfire. It slowly destroys the people on the receiving end of it as if they've taken in doses of poison, as all prejudice eventually does. We do not honor people when we do things like this show does to human beings. One doesn't need to be talked to like a dog to make positive changes in their life- in fact, just the opposite is true. I despise the whole concept of this belittling/blaming/shaming/torturing/depriving/injuring being "entertainment" to people. I don't find watching my fellow man endure painful doses of prejudice, misinformation, and deprivation to be "entertaining". If this posts comes off as harsh, well..I can't apologize. I'm not ready to make nice about this. We can heal and help people with our words and actions, or we can break their hearts, minds and spirits with them. Anything of the latter sort, I'm against without hesitation and without apology. I know this comes off as a long harangue, but
please understand what prejudice does to a person's soul. I survived it. However, I've known some people who did
not survive the torture of hateful words and all types of bullying. People who went around in their (often far-too-short) lives feeling like they were dirt, deserving of nothing good, and destined to be failures. No one should be taught that, believe it about themselves, or believe it about anyone else. For those who have children, please bring them up to be respectful of
all people, I beg you. Teach them the power of their words and actions. Show them how to be positive, thoughtful, loving, and encouraging to others with those words and actions.
