Weighty Issues August 7, 2008
I watched an amazing thing today. Two women crept forward in their cars, jockeying for this parking spot right by the grocery store’s front doors. They began honking and arguing, with one finally wedging her car in before the other. The one who didn’t get the space parked behind the other woman, got out and continued arguing.
There were probably about 20 empty spaces less than 30 yards away. I’m not kidding.
Neither had little kids…and neither were disabled or elderly. They were just lazy, plain and simple. And angry…and stressed out.
And we wonder why we are a nation of health epidemics.
The interesting thing is that I think we are too fixated on “fatness” as the culprit when we talk about the diseases of the sedentary. Both the ladies in question today were of a normal weight. But I bet if you asked them to run a quarter mile they couldn’t do it. And I don’t even WANT to know what their blood pressures are. Meanwhile, while they were fighting a couple other folks pulled in at the back of the parking lot, hopped out of the cars and headed into the store. Both were pretty chubby.
When I get my coffee in the morning, I always see the same, very nice man getting a fat-laden breakfast sandwich. Every single morning. He probably weighs about 150 pounds…140 pounds of it in his veins.
There were at least 5 “severely” overweight women and men at the Lowell tri on Sunday, and many who were probably carrying 15-30 pounds of extra weight. But they were out there, completing an endurance event. And they were kicking ass.
The reason I bring this up, is because a) we all tend to make erroneous and hurtful assumptions about people based on their weight and b) we as a society value appearance over fitness. Because you tend to eat more at you work out more, a lot of people don’t experience much weight loss when they start training. (Our bodies are EXCELLENT at preventing us from starving to death and they take their job doing so very seriously). And that leads a lot of folks to give it up because they aren’t getting “results.”
You have more energy, more strength, more mental accuity if you exercise. You may or may not lose weight, but you will improve your body composition. What more can you ask for??? I’m not saying weight doesn’t matter in health, but if you exercise and try to eat decently you are better off than some skinny person who sits on a couch and tries every fad diet that comes along.
I’d certainly rather be an overweight triathlete than the sedentary socialites barking at one another over the closest parking space…in the time it took them to settle their dispute, I parked my car at the end of the parking lot, walked to and into the store, and got the last box of organic blueberries (which I should admittedly have been buying at the local farmstand but I wanted to save gas…where’s the right choice there?). Then again, neither one of them probably wanted that box…they were too busy fighting each other to get to the Cheetos sale.
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Thanks for writing this - I think there was a blurb in a Women’s Health mag about heavier women who exercise being much healthier than a slim couch potato. If I’m feeling like my bum is getting a little big I just remember that it gets me up and/or down the mountain every time…