Too fat for fitness? Weigh in with your experiences

7th October 2008

Too fat for fitness? Weigh in with your experiences

posted in Body Image, Fat Bias, Fitness/Exercise, Personal |

Dear Amy ran a question last week from a reader concerned about an overweight 12-year-old relative with unhealthy eating habits. The well-intentioned relative cited concerns about a family history of diabetes and wanted to address the issue without harming the girl’s self-esteem. I agreed with Paul in that I thought Amy’s advice was, for the most part, constructive: She encouraged the letter-writer to introduce the girl to activities she might enjoy and emphasized that the girl’s self-esteem to be partially determined by the ways in which she’s treated by people like the letter-writer. That Amy dropped the proverbial ball by recommending The Biggest Loser as a positive example of how “fulfilling it is to get control of your health through diet and exercise” is an indication of how no one, even highly-paid advice columnists, is perfect.

Another reader responded to Concerned Relative in yesterday’s Ask Amy column. She writes:

Dear Amy: I’m responding to “Concerned Relative,” who has a young overweight relative. As a 40-year-old woman who has always been overweight, I am very familiar with this issue. I believe the best thing this relative can do for an overweight child (besides being supportive and loving) is to think of some activities that the girl will love, and get her into them.

Case in point: I always loved horses, and I truly feel that had I been given a chance to ride, I might have turned out differently.* Exercise was never made fun for me, and the few things I wanted to do that were physical were denied me due to issues of proximity or cost.

To this day, I wonder what might have been had I gotten the opportunity to discover new parts of myself. This person might be able to offer something this girl has always wanted to do but can’t afford or her parents can’t or won’t do for her.

––Overweight Too

I’ve never been a sports kind of person, but as a sophomore in high school, I wanted to join the school tennis team. The team had few players, so virtually anyone who tried out was guaranteed a spot on the team. When I told my mom, however, she replied that I was too fat to join the team and that I should lose weight before I even thought of trying out. I’m sure my mother was not so critically blunt in her language, but nearly 15 years later, this is the overarching message I remember taking from the exchange. I can only now wonder why it never occurred to her that perhaps playing an organized sport might lead to weight loss. Perhaps she was worried that I’d feel ostracized in a short tennis skirt or wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other, more fit players. Who knows. What I do know is that I never did lose weight (in high school) and I never joined the tennis team.

A few years ago I bought a couple of used tennis racquets from a sporting store for my sister and I. Neither of us knew how to keep score (what’s up with love, anyway?) or how to even play, really, but we both had fun lobbing the ball over the net and dashing across the court in often vain attempts to volley it back. I’ve since retired my used tennis racquet to Goodwill and bought a flashy new one a couple summers ago that I usually keep stashed away in my trunk for the impromptu game. I still play today although its increasingly harder to find partners, much less partners who are willing to retrieve my overzealous serves. I even considered taking a community beginner’s tennis class earlier this summer, but a late graduate class schedule conflicted with it. And I used to play against the old reliable wall at the university racquetball courts until I dropped down to part-time and lost my rec club membership. Still, I have yet to find anything quite as therapeutic as directing all your stress and anxiety into that little lime-green ball.

I often wonder how my perceptions of exercise and self-confidence would have been different had I joined the school team. Would I have made more friends? Would I have better managed my weight? Would I have developed more self-confidence? Would I have seen fitness as more than state-mandated child abuse? The what-ifs abound… How about you? Was there ever an activity you wanted to do, but were dissuaded from because of your weight or other reasons? How would you be different today had you been allowed to indulge your real interests?

* While weight is a factor with some horses, many ranches offer horseback riding without any weight requirements. Other factors are equally important. According to one horse riding instructor, “a heavy person who is athletic is easier for a horse to carry then a lighter person who flops around and does not work with the horse.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Body Image, Fat Bias, Fitness/Exercise, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On October 7th, 2008, CatsPuke

said:

I always loved playing football when I was a little girl. I’d play it every single day, lunchtimes, and morning and afternoon breaks, then I’d come home and go out to play, which often involved more football. There were only a few girls who played, but that didn’t matter.

Then as I approached the later years of primary school (11ish) and started developing small breasts, I noticed that the teacher dind’t pick me for the teams anymore. The boys said I couldn’t play anymore. I didn’t understand why.

I kept trying, went to high school and football wasn’t even on the girls curiculum, the boys there wouldn’t let me play either.

I couldn’t help developing breasts. I often think if I’d found another sport things might have been different. I’ve found spin classes now, but i do still long to be involved in a team game. Having it being drilled into me that “I’m not sporty” at high school instills the fear of making a fool of myself in me.

CP x

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 8:35 am

2 On October 7th, 2008, Alexia

I’m almost 300 pounds and finally losing weight — not by dieting (that’s how I yo-yo’d to 300#) but rather as a side effect by doing things that are fun! I now walk, jog, swim, lift weights, and bike regularly among other things. I exercise vigorously on average an hour a day and feel great! I’m more fit than many many thin people. And I’m in good health. Strong as a horse. Speaking of horses, would love to ride horses. Maybe I’ll call around and see if there are any places that will take me — that’s one thing I love doing that I have avoided! No more! Life is not for avoiding fun things because I’m not at the “perfect” weight yet.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 9:43 am

3 On October 7th, 2008, Yorke

My parents harassed me about food, and that sucked, but they DID get me into sports. I started playing soccer at 5 years old and played till high school. They never made me feel I was too fat to do anything and always commended me on my skills at soccer. This really set me up for a lifetime of activities (after I got through the rough patches of being too ill to exercise) and I thank them for that. I should also add that weight loss was never the motivation behind the push to do sports. I never thought about how weird that is…

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am

4 On October 7th, 2008, Chrissy

Well, as I cited yesterday, I thought that gym class was a terrible, terrible thing. But, when it came to team sports, I generally loved them. I was on a swim team from age eight until high school. And in middle school, I really wanted to join the basketball team.

Swimming was, I have to say, a blessing and a burden for me. It was fun, I made most of my friends there, but the mentality of competition was a bit hard to handle. I remember the first few years, when I was too young to care about it all, I liked swimming because I liked the water, liked the feel of it, and just thought it was fun. My coach had me training as a long distance swimmer, which suited me because I’d spend a long time in the pool without having to overexert myself. I’d swim in meets in 200 freestyles, and relays, and occasionally the odd stroke (I was good at backstroke and breaststroke). But eventually, I started to get sucked into the competition bubble.

I think I always did the whole watch-where-other-people-are when swimming. In the beginning it was so I could make sure I was “doing things right.” But now it was out of competition. For a while, the love of competition did good things for me…in the 9-10 age group, I worked my way from the bottom up, and by the 11-12 age group, I was winning a few of my races on good days, and aiding in relays that placed well. It was good…until I started losing.

I think in the end, the reason I did swimming was because it was fun, social, and…everyone else was doing it. I was still fat, I was still uncomfortable in a swimsuit most days. I would end up crying because I felt like a failure when I finished last in practice, etc. But at the same time, the fact that I was there, the fact that I was only a few seconds off of everyone else, or hundredths of a second, or whatever, made me feel good. I was part of that team. I had friends there. I made friends there, and I proved a lot to myself. It was good. I’ll never know if it’s really what I wanted to do. But I did do it, and that’s all that matters to me know. It definitely made me stronger than I would’ve been otherwise, and gave me an outlet of sorts.

I didn’t swim in high school because I did theatre (whole different story for a different day in relation to my body and my confidence) and therefore didn’t have time. But, you know, I think I look back on it fondly. And I can sure wear a swimsuit nowadays. I think that’s a good side effect.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am

5 On October 7th, 2008, Godless Heathen

I’m pretty fortunate that I got to try a lot of sports and activities growing up. One summer camp year had us riding horses, which cured me quickly of my romantic equestrian ideas. They are lovely animals, but thank Gawd I don’t have to ride one to get anywhere. The year we did archery was probably the best time I ever had, I deeply regret never living anywhere that gave me another chance at it. We also got to try tennis in high school, which was a blast, though I never learned how to do the scoring either. We didn’t have a tennis team (girls sports were limited to softball and basketball) so that was the end of it. My family did have a badminton set, so I got to play with my sister whenever it was nice out.

I probably wouldn’t like any sports if I hadn’t gotten the chance to try a lot of them. I was still a fat kid, but I had fun!

Thinking about it now, I wish I wasn’t so dang poor, I’d love to take up archery again. Maybe even hunting some day.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:26 am

6 On October 7th, 2008, Tonia

I think discouraging people from exercise due to size is silly. At any size, regular exercise is key to good health. Instead of discouraging people who don’t fit the “ideal size” we should be encouraging women of all sizes to get out and do things. I didn’t do much in the way of fitness until I was overweight and 33 years old, primarly due to the discouragement most women get once they reach puberty (I can relate to the comment about being ignored once breasts appear). Now I am 44 and I am in better shape than I was in my 20’s!! I can do assisted pull-ups, chest presses with 50 pounds, lunges, etc. I can do 45 minutes on the elliptical and over an hour of aerobics. And I am 5′ 4″ and 226 pounds. Exercise is a good thing. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and regular self-improvement, even if your weight doesn’t change. That is what it should be about, not

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:27 am

7 On October 7th, 2008, WeightlessOne

Let me just say that my folks starved me, forced me on diets, and got me involved with activities that interested me. The starving and diets were hurtful; the activities were not hurtful. I took horseback riding lessons, racketball lessons, and swimming lessons up through lifesaving. I played basketball, softball, and tennis and was an avid biker. Most of these things were activities that I really wanted to do (’cept the tennis–that was my mom living vicariously through me). None of these activities made me lose weight, but they made me strong and helped me to love movement instead of hating it.

I’ve always said that the activities weren’t the problem, the diets were.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am

8 On October 7th, 2008, Piffle

I was reading another blog in the fatosphere about six months to a year ago; and the blogger wrote about another option for horseback riding, finding a draft cross which had been trained to the saddle. Draft horses are bigger boned and sturdier which is an advantage in carrying a heavier person, plus they’ve generally been bred for docile personalities, which isn’t always true for the smaller horses.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:34 am

9 On October 7th, 2008, Rachel

I might have become more involved in community sports in grade school, except that my family was often working poor and couldn’t afford it nor did they have the extra time to chauffeur me around to games and practices. Of course, I could have just played at my local park myself or with friends, but I think some kids need structured kinds of activities. So, poverty, or even those who aren’t in poverty but are close to it, is another important element to consider here.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am

10 On October 7th, 2008, Mary Sue

I was a competitive dancer in high school, on the Colorguard team, and I won lots and lots of awards. I worked out 40 hours a week during competition season, 15 hours a week in the off season and summers, and could bench-press 300lbs.

I weighed 245 lbs and was 5′4″ tall.

These were things I wanted to do, though. No one told me I couldn’t, but then again, no one told me I could. To quote an overused catchphrase, I just did it.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

11 On October 7th, 2008, cubicalgirl

My family was not “sporty” and didn’t even watch sports on TV. Growing up, I was involved in non-sports activities (girl scouts, youth group, music lessons, choir) but I never realized that I could do things like be a cheerleader or go to dance class, or be on a sports team and my parents never mentioned it (I guess they figured I was already doing activities so they didn’t need to give me even more options). This year, at the age of 31, I joined my company’s softball team and I had so much fun! I can only wonder what else I would be into today if I had grown up trying sports. My parents never pushed me to do activities I didn’t want to and I was allowed to try whatever I wanted; but the fact I didn’t think of joining a swim team or field hockey doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked to had it been presented to me as an option. I’m kind of at a loss as to wehere to find organized sports for fun for adults, but I’m moving soon and plan to find a another softball team or vollyball team or something of the sort to get involved in.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

12 On October 7th, 2008, linsey

I have often wondered how my life would have different if someone had encouraged me to be active, especially gym teachers. I was one of the kids who had to walk-run the mile, but, dammit, I was a fast sprinter and super flexible. No one ever, ever, ever encouraged me to join track or do any other sport for that matter. I had a non-athletic single mom which doesn’t help - no one ever taught me how to throw or catch a ball, for example. Gym was such physical and emotional torture, I really grew to hate movement of any kind. Looking back, I was really just chubby in a skinny, uber-fit rich town bearing the brunt of some classism. I feel like if I’d been encouraged to be strong and fit, I might have been spared the eating disorder and drugs. But who knows.

I didn’t start exercising until I started biking as a way to get around and then when I quit smoking I started running. Now I am fitter and fatter than most folks I know. Being strong is a large and positive part of my identity now. I still struggle with feeling uncoordinated and slow - I frequently fantasize about joining the women’s rugby team, but just can’t muster the confidence.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

13 On October 7th, 2008, devil

I always HATED gym class at school, but picked up the solo-exercise habit at age 12. My parents encouraged me by buying me stationary bikes, rowing machines and weights. It was expensive, but they didn’t like me to go out jogging by myself and I only like to exercise alone.

Our public schools are already so underfunded (and our taxes are so high already), that we really can’t afford physical ed classes and/or sports programs in schools anymore. So many kids in this country leave school without being able to read and write and do basic math, we really need to pare down and get our educational priorities straight.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

14 On October 7th, 2008, ladyjaye

In my family, my aunts were quite physically active (still are, in fact). My mom is a different case, since she can’t run due to a physical disability, so her choice of physical activities is quite limited.

Well, being physically may or may not lead to weight loss. As a kid, I was chubby (still am fat, as a matter of fact). Yet, I was a pretty active kid, running around with my friends (I remember us having sprinting competitions with my best friend whereas we’d time each other with a watch’s chronometer). I played street hockey but also organized softball. In high school, I played in my school’s volleyball team (grades 7 and and took ice hockey classes (lunchtime during grade 8, full class in grades 9 and 10) — both were on top of regular P.E. I do remember a so-called friend trying to dissuade me from taking that ice hockey class, but I didn’t let that deter me from going ahead with the class… I also rode my bike or walked to my best friend’s house, who lived across town (about 1.5 km, which can feel quite far when you’re a teen).

So, I was pretty healthy throughout most of my youth, yet never was slim. Slightly chubby at best. But I was able to run up stairs and run after an escaping tennis ball when we’d play street hockey.

Basically, I do agree that finding something fun to do is key to exercising. No point in getting the kid into tennis if basketball’s more her thing…

15 On October 7th, 2008, Lampdevil

Discouraging people from at least TRYING a sport is bunk. I was an overly-optimistic little thing after hitting middle school, and I scraped up the gumption to try out for basketball and soccer. Sure, gym was pretty sucky, but.. but activities after school! OMG. And… I sucked pretty bad at both, but I was never discouraged at all. No cracks about my weight or my aim or my endurance. Hell, they put me on the soccer team, where I could suck all the more aggressively every Tuesday and Thursday after school.

My strongest memory of being discouraged was at a summer camp, though. They offered acrobatics and rope-climbing and performancy things and… well, I wasn’t very good, and I knew it. I felt fat and awkward, and apparently it showed. Most of the councelors DID discourage me from trying the “hard” stuff. But one really awesome guy saw how damned miserable and afraid I looked and purposely picked me out to do things. It turns out I make a fantastic base for human pyramids, my balance is great, and I just needed practice to do some trapeeze stunts. He made it clear to me that I could still DO THINGS, and I shouldn’t let anything stop me from at least TRYING. Bless ‘im.

Now I’ve started taking karate classes. That was something I was also discouraged from doing, by everyone that I could think of. (Majorettes, yes! Tae Kwon Do classes, no no no. Maybe my mom didn’t want me kicking people?) And I really like it! And I really think I can do it! And I wonder how much different life would have been if I hadn’t had reasons to build up such aversions to physical activity, early on.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

16 On October 7th, 2008, Ducky

Rachel, it’s so funny you brought up this topic. I was just talking to my BF about this very thing a day or two ago.

When I was younger all I wanted in the whole world was to take dance classes. I wanted lessons so badly that I would pour over the “dance” section of the phone book just absorbing as much information as possible. I checked out dance books from the school library and begged for lessons. My parents always told me that we couldn’t afford dance lessons. (Although my mom later told me she thought I was making that part up and we could have totally afforded lessons - WTF?!)

Horseback riding lessons were also out as was fencing until my brother agreed to take classes too (which was four years after I had begun asking for fencing lessons).

My brother was in Boy Scouts and I was never in any sort of group activity. I think I got shafted for being a girl, honestly. Even so, I loved riding bikes and running around and badminton in the backyard and swimming for fun but I can’t help but wonder how my life would be different if I had been able to take a dance class.

posted on October 7th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

17 On October 8th, 2008, keshmeshi

I didn’t do much structured sports on my own time as a kid, but I was lucky enough to grow up in a townhouse complex with a pool and on a street with minimal traffic — ideal for bicycling.

My main obstacles to staying fit as an adolescent and teenager were: phys ed being entirely restricted to team sports and the nastiness of my classmates, especially the boys who treated anyone who wasn’t a perfect athlete badly, especially the girls.

posted on October 8th, 2008 at 12:30 am

18 On October 8th, 2008, Emily

I can’t agree more that kids should be encouraged to find physical activities they enjoy. I was never overweight as a child, but was COMPLETELY out of shape and felt that I was just totally incapable of doing anything physical. And then at the age of 28 I discovered running and loved it. Unfortunately, because I waited so long to start, my body just can’t handle the amount of running I would like to do and I keep getting injured. But if I had been encouraged to try running as a kid, I might have been able to build up the strength over time. It is never too late to start, but starting earlier is always better!

posted on October 8th, 2008 at 8:56 am

19 On October 8th, 2008, Bronwyn

I agree 100% with the letter, because I often wonder what would have become of me if my family had been able to afford the dance lessons I so desperately wanted after our (very cheap) dance teacher’s back gave out and she could no longer teach.

Would I be thin? Probably not. But I think I’d be a lot less unfit than I am at the moment.

posted on October 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

20 On October 9th, 2008, Bree

My main obstacles to staying fit as an adolescent and teenager were: phys ed being entirely restricted to team sports and the nastiness of my classmates, especially the boys who treated anyone who wasn’t a perfect athlete badly, especially the girls.

This was my main gym experience too. And of course, chubbier kids get picked last for team sports. Until I (and my classmates) discovered I was a pretty good goalie/soccer player. Schools have got to to get their gym programs out of the 1950s, but that’s another topic.

I was pretty active as a kid, I rode my bike, played soccer, softball, badminton, and swam. And while I wasn’t slender, I was still able to do a lot. I also danced in my room to fast dance music, something I still do almost everyday. But I never asked to be part of an athletic club as a kid, although I tried the Hi-Steppers and baton twirling just wasn’t for me. I preferred to be active without being part of an official group.

posted on October 9th, 2008 at 11:23 am

21 On October 9th, 2008, Emerald

I love dance as a kid. Really loved dance. I had ballet lessons very early, but had to give them up after I got my satin shoes wet, ruined them and as punishment, my folks wouldn’t buy me another pair. (My mother, weirdly, later insisted I’d asked to give up because I thought I ‘knew everything and they couldn’t teach me any more’. At five? No way have I ever had that kind of chutzpah, even as an adult.)

Anyway. By seven, I’d started putting weight on, and I was getting teased about it. I grew to hating anything gym-related because it always seemed to be a game of ‘humiliate the fat kid’ (by getting me to climb a rope, do something that would involve my underwear showing or whatever). So I went up school loathing PE, and in secondary school it got worse because the teachers, both very thin women, hated what they perceived as fat girls, i.e. anyone bigger than them, which was most of us. I was once made to do a rigorous circuit routine in the gym when I had such bad period pain I was nearly passing out. I’m pretty sure the slimeball in charge thought I was making excuses because I was ‘lazy’.

But, I still loved to dance. At eleven, I found a ballet class and took it up again…only to be hounded mercilessly by the thinner girls. One particular one would take reports on my general fatness and uselessness back to school for her non-dancing friends to laugh at. (I was a British size 14 by this stage.) The last straw was when the teacher herself moved me and the only other bigger girl in class down a grade when it came to exam time…then when it was exam time for that grade, she did it again. We ended up as 14-15 year olds dancing with girls of 8-9 doing stuff way below our age - and no pointe work, which I also loved. To judge from the other girl, it was nothing to do with our dancing and everything to do with Madame not wanting us ’spoiling’ her nice thin exam lineup. And of course, this also got to my school and I was even more of a laughing stock. The teacher was a family friend, and I can’t believe she’d do that to a teen. It broke my heart to leave, but I didn’t see that I had any choice.

This was added to the comments on my ‘chunky thighs’ at home any time I donned tights, and the fact that I craved a dance part in school plays but couldn’t get one because they were choreographed by…the PE teacher…who’d only tell the (thin) girls she wanted when and where the auditions were being held.

I would happily take up dance again if I could find a body-friendly class, but I’m half afraid to try. I don’t want to be humiliated again.

posted on October 9th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

22 On November 15th, 2008, Fatty Goes to the Gym « No Cheese, Please said:

[...] Too Fat for Fitness deals with this subject as well, sort of. It’s hard as heck to be healthy and active when one can’t even go into a gym and feel comfortable. Maybe a lot of fat people feel this way, and that’s why they don’t go. In the summer, it won’t matter so much because it’ll be warm out, but it’s not like I live in Southern California. This is Downeast Maine. It actually gets cold here. I guess I just don’t know what to do. [...]

posted on November 15th, 2008 at 12:09 pm