The terrible reality of fat shaming
I’m not much of a hero worshipper — never have been. There was Mickey Mantle when I was a youngster in the 1950s, and I’ve been a fan of Milton Teagle (Richard) Simmons ever since he opened his gym in Beverly Hills in the 1980s, but other than that, I’m hard-pressed to think of another hero — until recently.
My new fitness hero isn’t the inventor of P90X, Insanity or CrossFit. My new hero is Mandi Holden, manager of Anytime Fitness, a health club in Reno, Nev. Holden rocketed to internet fame on May 25 when she posted a video on Facebook in response to being fat shamed by a man touring her gym. The prospective member, knowing nothing about Holden, made a comment about her weight saying, “Well, it doesn’t look like she works out very much.” Little did the man know that Holden had joined the gym in 2014 weighing in at 420 pounds, of which she has lost 120 pounds.
Holden, who was on the phone at the time, decided not to pretend that she didn’t hear the comment. When the guest returned to discuss membership options, Holden told him, “I just want to let you know it looks like I don’t work out very much but that’s because you did not see where I started from. Don’t judge a book by its cover. We don’t judge people by how they look here because you might be surprised.”
Later, she retreated to the facility’s utility closet and filmed an emotional seven-minute video on fat shaming that has gone viral with more than 270,000 views to date. In an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle, Holden said, “Our members here are all kinds of shapes, sizes and orientations. It’s really important for them to feel safe and that they’re not going to be made fun of.”
Welcome to the world of fat shaming, where many assume overweight people are lazy and slovenly without having a clue to possible underlying reasons — medical, emotional or situational — for their weight gain. In a culture where photoshopped and airbrushed images of surreal women and buffed-out men are the norm, fat shaming is epidemic.
The website Bullying Statistics defines fat shaming as “an act in which individuals are judged negatively based on their physical appearance. Generally, men and women are fat-shamed if they appear ‘overweight’ or don’t fit the idyllic image of thin and beautiful.” Research has shown that fat shaming makes a lasting impression both psychologically and physically.
A new study reported on health.com found that overweight women who believe negative messages about their bodies are at greater risk for heart disease and diabetes. The research, published in the journal Obesity, showed that women with higher levels of “weight-bias internalization” were associated with an increased incidence of metabolic syndrome, as well as having six times the risk of high triglycerides. In addition, fat-shaming experiences can lead to increased inflammation and stress-hormones in the body and, not surprisingly, depression.
The truly sad tale is that — not only is fat shaming deleterious — it doesn’t work. A recent study of 2,944 people over the age of 50 at the University of London found that those who reported weight bullying not only had a greatly reduced chance of weight loss, they actually tended to gain weight becoming obese. An article in Psychology Today states that obesity is not a choice but rather is a complex socioeconomic, psychological and physiological phenomenon. And here’s my two cents — thin is not the same thing as fit.
If you have seven minutes to invest to explore the impact of fat shaming, check out Mandi Holden’s video at yahoo.com/lifestyle/gym-manager-respondsfat-shamer-viral-video-show-kindness-201908777.html. I think you’ll see why she’s my hero.
Cord Prettyman is a certified Master Personal Trainer and owner of Absolute Workout Fitness and Post-Re-hab Studio in Woodland Park. He can be reached at 687-7437, cordprettyman@msn.com. Visit cordprettyman.com for more information.