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Overweight? We're Lazy and It's Our Own Fault

Posted on Mar 18th 2009 5:00PM by Bev Sklar

Filed Under: Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness

If you're overweight or obese and in poor cardiovascular shape, then you're lazy and it's all your own fault. At least that's what MisFits columnist Howard Schneider said in his candid departing column over at "The Washington Post" this month. I respect Schneider's straight talk here as much as I wholeheartedly accept the basic caloric truth that you'll gain weight if you consume more calories than you burn.

Schneider shared four diet and fitness nuggets of wisdom he's learned over the past two years writing for MisFits, including: it's our own fault we've become overweight and out of shape; we're lazy; we're impatient and unrealistic when it comes to diet and fitness (so true); and diet and fitness works ... if you work hard at it.

Perhaps Schneider's diet and fitness truths can crack through the denial and rationalization that it's not someone or something else holding you back. Not your stressful life, your annoying mother-in-law or the fact you woke up after delivering three kids in four years carrying an extra 30 pounds. Not even this 41-year-old's favorite excuse -- I've now entered the decade of waistline expansion. If you eat right most of the time and regularly exercise forever, you get full credit for reaching your goals. It's no one's accomplishment but your own.

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Tags: Bev-Sklar, Howard-Schneider, MisFits, The-Washington-Post

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DaleK 3-19-2009 @ 11:42PM

I agree...

But what urks me is the play on the overweight people are just lazy stereotype. I get what he's saying certainly, and I don't really disagree with what he's getting at.....I just don't think it's helpful to those who might already be beating themselves up.

Plus it kinda just gives people yet another reason to believe they can't lose weight..."I can't lose the weight...I'm too lazy." We are what we believe.

I've lost 75lbs. It took a TON of mental and physical work to lose that weight - more work than any average weight person would have to do.

How lazy was I? Did I go from being overweight and then magically become unlazy once I reached some acceptable weight on some healthy weight chart? Uhm no.

I think unmotivated, uninformed, and certainly impatient, better describes what is generally happening with many over weight people.

I was certainly inactive prior to losing the weight. That had more to do with the fact that I was eating garbage food that gave me no energy to move. If anything it robbed me of what little energy I *did* have!

But yeah, I'm certainly all about placing the blame where it belongs. We humans play the blame game with so many things in life, not just weight loss!

When we point fingers we turn over the ability to control our own lives, our self-efficacy, to who/what ever we are blaming for our woes.

And patience? I always say if patience is a virtue then I must be the Whore of Babylon.

u262f 3-20-2009 @ 4:52PM

My experience has been the opposite. I lost weight by working much less, watching TV, playing video games, and sleeping a lot more. (TV = Food Network, video game = Dance Dance Reovlution.) Being healthy doesn't have to be about working hard.

Melinda 3-21-2009 @ 8:26AM

I see what this guy is trying to get at, but the average obese person is no more lazy than the average "skinny fat" person. Our behaviors have a lot to do with what we grew up with. We had parents that fed us when we did a good job. We had parents that distracted us with food. We had parents that had deep fryers on the counter tops, gallons of ice cream in the freezer. We grew up to learn the behaviors that make us obese. It's not as easy as saying "go to the gym you lazy fat person".

A lot of this has to do with not feeling satisfied after the normal serving size. Someone that grew up in a normal household with normal food rules feels "done" when they've had a bowl of cereal. An obese person needs more than that to feel satisfied.

I have successfully lost 175 pounds, and I didn't go to the gym to lose it. I counted every calorie. Does that make me lazy? No, it took a ton of mental energy to hold back on the more food that I wanted. Now that I am 120 pounds (5'5") does that mean I am satisfied with the amount I consume? Oh heck no. I have a brain of an obese woman, and it's a struggle day in and day out. I do go to the gym now, 5 days a week, and work out intensely, but it's not what's keeping me at a normal weight level. It's the pulling through cravings and desires day in and day out that do it.