thoughts on overweight health teachers

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so,what's your people thoughts on overweight
health and fitness instructors?

I find it ironic

Yes, ironic. And it probably undermines the credibility of whatever they are teaching. Obviously it didn't work for them.

I once saw on TV many years ago a woman who was claiming that she was unfairly sacked by her employer. She was a receptionist for some weight loss/health-related company (I can't remember exactly what it was). She was fat and the company decided that a fat receptionist would make their customer question the effectiveness of their service/products. As a result she was sacked.

Sod that, I know a hilariously dyslexic journalist.

He got a 2:1 in his journalism degree and all. Pours his soul into it, but as soon as he gets animated about an article all spelling and grammar goes out the window.

It's a very common thing.

It's called H y p o c r i t e.

It's kind of like a doctor who smokes or a policeman who speeds; Even if they don't take their own advice, they're still right.

Being a hypocrite doesn't make you wrong.

When I was young, I used to laugh about this all the time. A good friend of my father is a smoking doctor.

like a mechanic who doesn't own a car.

or a bartender who doesn't drink.

It is possible to be overweight (to a point anyways....morbid obesity would be past that point) and fit.

It's also possibly to be thin and at an ideal weight and in really bad shape.

I think it would be cool if there were more competent health and fitness instructors with more fat on their bodies -- then people who felt ashamed for being fat might be more comfrotable in health and fitness classes.

I see it two ways....

1. A FIT personal trainer will be sought out by people who want someone who knows what they are doing.

2. A FAT personal trainer will be sought out by people who don't want to be intimidated but rather coached and allowed to feel like they did a good workout just for showing up.

What you hire may reflect what you really want.

Or it may reflect a different set of knowledge and assumptions about body size than what is common.

There have been studies of body weight and fitness that challenge the idea that you must be thin to healthy and physically fit.

If I went to a health class I personally wouldn't care what my fitness instructor looked like. As long as they knew what they were doing, could do it themselves, and got me into better shape I would be happy. I'm not even sure I would care if they could do it themselves, actually -- there's no reason why an out-of-shape person, whether fat or skinny, wouldn't know what to do and how, and couldn't push me appropriately (since when did body weight or personal fitness level make you incapable of being a drill sargaent type of person, or learning about human metabolism and kinesiology? The only problem for me would be that I do better with being shown things than told how to do them, so if the person couldn't even demonstrate what an activity looked like that would be a problem.)

When I've been in bad shape I've been skinny and in bad shape. My idea of fitness is increased stamina for things like long-distance running, increased muscle strength, etc. How the machinery inside your body works, rather than what size you are (I mean obviously there are limits to how much fat a person can carry on or in their body and still be healthy -- and also there is visceral fat and there is subcutaneous fat and visceral fat is much more unhealthy -- but people act like it has to be virtually none or else you're out of shape and unhealthy). In high school, there were chubby/fat kids who did much better on fitness tests than I did -- particularly when it came to running.

And even if someone only did want to feel good about showing up and putting in minimal effort, it's better for someone to do a little bit of exercise than nothing at all so they should feel good about it (and there's no reason a fit instructor would be less encouraging than a not-fit one, or a skinny instructor less encouraging than a fat one, either -- neither fitness nor body size determines personality and teaching style). I'm not saying they should pretend they ran a marathon when they actually went for a short walk, but you don't have to run marathons to be healthy or increase your fitness level...even if all a person does for exercise amounts to nothing more than harm reduction, that's still something.

Perhaps, but a FAT personal trainer certainly IS NOT practicing what they know.