Some of the girls at my work wanted to do something fun over the weekend. Some ideas were thrown around and I suggested a hike in one of the beautiful parks near our work. Sure, most of them are overweight, but I figured since we’re all 18-22, we should be able to handle light hiking.
I might as well have suggested getting in a space shuttle and flying to the moon. One girl said, “Do I look like I hike?” The other ones said it’s too hot (It’s going to be 70F/21C, not that hot.) We ended up deciding on a makeover party.
I just think it’s depressing that the majority of the developed world is not able to do any sort of physical activity. We’re becoming blobs and we’re okay with that. Why?
I legitimately don’t get it. People blame HFCS, sugar, carbs, fat, the BMI scale, city life, extremely rare health problems, etc. But with over 2/3 of the population overweight, is it possible we’re just becoming lazy and entitled? My mom told me that people in her generation usually didn’t have seconds at dinner if they didn’t do a lot of activity that day. Or they would eat less at breakfast if they intended to eat a heavy lunch. That sort of restraint seems to have been lost. Now I see people at my college coming to campus on a shuttle bus (maybe saving 20 minutes of walking), downing entire pizzas by themselves and going home to take a nap.
I don’t know. It definitely disturbs me and it seems it’s only going to get worse. I look at schoolkids around here and they’re all chubby. You can hardly tell the genders or ages apart since they all, male or female, have boobs. It’s scary to see.
Any thoughts on this? Is our world going to snap out of it? Why does nobody seem to care?
May ask how old you are? Not trying to be snarky, but this is hardly a new or particularly complicated issue. I see you’re new to the board but you do read, watch the news or get information about the world at large on a regular basis don’t you?
I would care more if I thought humans were an endangered species. But I don’t. There’s still plenty of people on the planet to keep us going for another million years.
I do worry about health care costs and the like. But obesity isn’t the only lifestyle “choice” that drives up costs. I can’t wag my finger too much because I choose to live in an urban environment, right off the expressway. I can’t judge the fatties too much about raising my premiums, when I don’t buy pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. Here I am sitting at my computer, slowly killing myself, when I could be using a standing desk like a virtuous person. if i get cancer one day because of all these bad choices, will someone be clucking their tongue at me?
Yes, we are very lazy, and we’re only get lazier. But really, the only thing you can do is focus on yourself and try not be preachy. A lot of “lazy” people actualy have good reasons for being lazy.
But it is a new issue. Never before in human history has a nation had a population where the MAJORITY was overweight or obese. And it’s getting worse.
How is it not new?
About why it affects me, well, I guess it’s the fact that it’s so prevalent. I don’t really want to live in a society where the majority of people are so out of shape and tired they can’t have fun with me. So I guess it’s selfish.
And it’s just depressing to see this as the future of humanity.
I have never had a hard time finding people to hike with me. There are lots of groups on Meetup that do hiking. Lots of hiking clubs, too.
Hiking isn’t everyone cup of tea, even for people who are in good shape. Hiking is also not a stereotypical “girly” activity, so you may have been slamming against these girl’s notions of feminimity rather than laziness.
My theory: nowadays instant gratification and comfort are more readily available than ever before. As a result, many people have less tolerance for being uncomfortable or having unsatisfied desires than ever before. The obesity, or other bad health, that comes from laziness and self-gratification is just one symptom of this. It’s not new, but it may well be more prevalent than it used to be.
Eh. Of the three people I know who like hiking, two are quite large.
I don’t think people have lost restraint. Scarcity has decreased, food is more availabile, calorie loads and portion sizes of a lot of foods have increased, people work more sedentary jobs, and indoor entertainment choices have increased.
If I lived before the Internet and good TV, I’d go for a lot more walks for entertainment, I’m sure. I don’t, so I don’t.
It’s a difficult issue, to the point where nobody can even agree what the issue exactly is. Fixing it will be tougher than “everybody should be less lazy.”
People’ve been saying everybody else is lazy for a long minute.
They didn’t want to hike and happen to be overweight (by how much we don’t know). How do you know those things are related? Maybe they just don’t like hiking and/or getting sweaty.
People where I live are pretty outdoorsy. It’s very New England to do sports and hike and what have you, and many of my friends do. I’m neither sporty nor into hiking, but hey, different strokes. My friends and I do non-sporty things together (restaurants, shopping, looking for new used bookstores, sailing).
I wouldn’t worry too much about the future of humanity. Stats actually indicate that childhood obesityin young childrenis down. We may have gotten past the obesity wave and figured out that we need to eat real food instead of crap.
It’s happening more now because people are much more likely to have a sedentary job than ever before, where we are required to sit on our asses 8-10 hours a day. It isn’t an excuse, it’s a fact of modern life.
Honestly, when a girl works until 6 every day, the kids have homework, dinner has to be made (preferably something healthy) and then tomorrow’s lunches, and by the way we are tired already, something’s got to give. That something, because it doesn’t jump out and force us to do it on a daily basis, is exercise and taking excellent care of yourself.
I don’t want to come off as a bitch to a new person, but get back to me in 20 years if you have made all the right choices.
p.s. plenty of people at my college ate a whole pizza and drank a pitcher of beer several times a week, but had time to run a few miles or play volleyball or otherwise stay active. That part isn’t new.
Just because no one wanted to do what you suggested, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t concerned about their health.
Maybe they like to do physical activity alone. For some of us, that’s a good down time, time to de-stress, disengage from things. I don’t even want anyone going with me when I take a break at work and take a walk around the building. I’m not a “buddy” exerciser.
Maybe they don’t like outdoor activities where there are bugs or snakes or spiders or dirt.
Some women will spend 40 minutes a day on a treadmill in a nice climate controlled environment where they have minimal chance of falling or twisting an ankle or tripping over a tree root. And wont’ even consider the outdoors.
Some people have allergies.
Some might be on their periods. Hiking? I don’t think so.
Driving out to a park and hiking might just be more of their free time than they really want to invest in activity with co-workers. It certainly would be for me.
Some people might just think of having a good time after work is going out for a drink or a movie. It doesn’t mean they are automatically “relaxed about obesity”. All this means is that you suggested an activity and they didn’t want to do it.
This is me. I like taking my long walks alone because it’s like meditation for me. I can walk as slowly or quickly as I want, and don’t feel pressured to do anything I don’t feel like doing. Like hiking in the hot sun when I prefer the shade, or going off-trail when I’m not familiar with the area.
Also, when you’re exercising with others, there’s the whole performance anxiety thing. No one wants to be the slowest one in the pack. I love hiking, but if someone invited me to hike with them, I’d instantly worry that I wasn’t good enough to keep up with them.
My sister runs miles on the treadmill with no problem, but she doesn’t care for the long hiking that I do. It’s boring to her. And I don’t wanna do the kind of running she does, because running isn’t enjoyable to me. It hurts and it’s risky. So I wouldn’t assume not wanting to partake in one form of exercise means a person doesn’t like any.
That said, I have no reason to doubt Neem’s coworkers don’t do any exercise. Non-exercisers do outnumber exercisers.
That’s not how I understood the “Fat Acceptance” movement – I understand it to be a movement to treat people the same regardless of weight (e.g. ‘fat jokes’ are considered as inappropriate as ‘Jew jokes’, people shouldn’t be shamed or criticized for being fat, etc.).
Just because no one wanted to do what you suggested, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t concerned about their health.
Maybe they like to do physical activity alone. For some of us, that’s a good down time, time to de-stress, disengage from things. I don’t even want anyone going with me when I take a break at work and take a walk around the building. I’m not a “buddy” exerciser.
Maybe they don’t like outdoor activities where there are bugs or snakes or spiders or dirt.
Some might be on their periods. Hiking? I don’t think so.
Driving out to a park and hiking might just be more of their free time than they really want to invest in activity with co-workers. It certainly would be for me./QUOTE]
Had the poster not mentioned what the reactions and responses were, I’d understand the thought devoted to “maybe …” I should think none of the respondents would feel at all weird about offering any of the reasons stated above, even as to “on their periods”. As to that, inevitably, there’d women who’d ask "Uhm, what are you suggesting? How many women do you think are incapacitated by menstruation that they can’t engage in intense physical activity never mind light or moderate one week a month? (Truth: many (fellow) women happily foster and deploy the persistent myth that it is terribly common for this physical process to be much more than a ho-hum annoyance of preparation to ensure there will be no need to ever borrow someone’s jacket. And THAT is a lesson one learns in short order within a few months of their first menstrual cycle.) Friday tangent!
Where’s the part where a makeover party is fun? I like hiking, but seriously, I’d rather dig ditches than have a makeover “party.” Other than things that are literal torture, I can’t think of things I’d enjoy less. If my friends wanted to do that instead of going hiking, I’d find new friends, no matter what their BMIs were.
I mean, cripes, if they didn’t want to go hiking, what about seeing a movie? Cooking a meal together? There aren’t museums in your area? Theaters? There’s no downtown area with shops, and buskers?
What were the other ideas that people passed on for the makeover party?
Where do you live? maybe you and I can go hiking, and I can save you from the makeover party.
