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What's with everyone's obsession to be healthy? Do they have to rub it in your face?


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So I work in an office. Im, 21 yrs old, 4'11 (im petite i know) and weigh 93 pounds. I eat constantly (small healthy meals, but on occasion some chocolate there) as I cant fit a large amount of food all at once. I dont exercise at all.

 

I just find it so annoying, that my coworkers feel the need to tell me that I should exercise. Just last week they told me im 'unhealthy'. Its just heaps annoying that they feel that they're healthier than thou just because they're following the latest diet they got from Cosmo magazine or Men's health.

 

Then they'll list of the calories, carbs bla bla they feel i should eat? Omg, start telling me that when you graduate from university with a medical degree. Not when your high-school dropout-personal-trainer tells you to.

 

Its like ALL the time. If by chance, I happen to have bought a choc muffin or baked goods to treat myslef, they go on and on. Something along the lines of "with what you eat, you should be as big as a house by now". Then the gym talk will follow..

 

Its so so routine. Its just getting boringly annoying now

 

Grrr...why can't ppl just leave me alone, let me eat my food. Its my own body, dammit.

 

I also hate it when people go, oh you're skinny now but wait till you get to my age. I think that's kinda rude, dont you think? They're really saying, 'you're gonna be fat later, haha'

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You know what? It is much healthier to eat many small meals than few big ones. :lmao: You might want to update them on that.

 

Second, you're right. It's simply rude to impose views on somebody who didn't ask for it. If you were 300 pounds and eating like a mad woman, they might have a reason...but as it is they are just jealous.

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Prodigal Princess
Omg, start telling me that when you graduate from university with a medical degree. Not when your high-school dropout-personal-trainer tells you to.

 

:lmao: Nice one.

 

I am naturally petite and I have the exact same problem with my co-workers that you do. However, I do exercise most mornings (just because I find it gives me more energy) and usually eat healthy stuff. But as soon as I grab a biscuit from the kitchen or eat a burger for lunch the comments start. I've been accused of being anorexic or bulimic on a few occasions.

 

It's so inappropriate. I dont understand why people feel they have the right to comment on my body. God forbid if I commented on what the fat bush pigs in the secretarial bay are eating for lunch.

 

Unfortunately I dont have any constructive advice to give you because it's something I also have to deal with. However, its important to realise that they are only making these comments because they are jealous. I pity them. ;)

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Hi,

I undersatand your concerns, and it really is nobody's business what you decide to eat be it good or bad; it's your choice, but the comments go both ways. For example, my boyfriend is a health nut, and he's is always eating healthy, but of course he doesn't force his eating habits on anyone but me :lmao:, but anyway, his coworker are always giving him grief because he doesn't eat the junk food they do when they go out for lunch. They also make fun of him because he drinks water :rolleyes:. I am not skinny by today's standards, I actually need to loose about 15lbs to not be overlined overweight, but I have a friend who is about 60-70 lbs overweight and she always complains that I'm too skinny, and everytime we go out to lunch she always is trying to get me to eat desserts, and tells me I have a perfect body and to please eat :D.

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Trialbyfire

Grazing is the best way to eat. It allows your body to process just enough to keep it at par, without storing excess food which turns into fat.

 

I will say that being healthy, helps the mind. ;)

 

*runs away*

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Another small, thin (what most people call too skinny) woman here. I have to eat a lot AND exercise a lot if I want to have any curves at all, though when I was younger and still had some baby fat left it wasn't as big a deal.

 

If you're healthy and happy, just say so and finish your cookies without feeling uncomfortable. People will catch on.

 

Carrot

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Plus you know the other thing that bores me? When people brag about how many minutes they do cardio etc at the gym. I know some people go for health purposes, but in my office most go to the gym cos its the hip new thing and they want to look good by telling people how much they go there.

 

Then they'll ask me (again) if i go to the gym. Then i'll say 'No". Then they'll be shocked and go "Why the hell not?!"."Its so good for you because <insert their uneducated medical thoughts about the benefits of going to the gym here>".

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IMHO most people don't go to the gym because it's "hip". They go because they want to be healthy and sorry hun, but the gym is good for you. Thin does not always equal healthy. Eating healthy does not always equal healthy, you do need some excercise as well.

 

However, if this is the lifestyle you choose to live that is your choice. But if they choose to live a lifestyle that includes eating healthy and exercising, that is also their choice.

 

It sounds like they want what's best for you but you are taking it defensivly and assuming they are trying to rub it in your face, which I don't think are their intentions.

 

You can tell them that you are happy with your lifestyle and don't want to change it.

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Trialbyfire

[rant]Okay, I will confess. I hate the gym and find nothing more boring than using the equipment or being in a work-out class unless it's kick-boxing. My preference is to do a combination of yoga/pilates at home, while listening to whatever music I choose and also walking, blading, swimming, etc. for cardio.

 

Part of what I hate about the gym is people staring, whether male or female. While this doesn't bother me on a daily basis because I also people watch, working out is such a personal thing. If you go to the gym, do it for your health v. rudely staring at other people. [/rant over]

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Sum1'sGot2RepThe530

Myst: tell those people to f-off and mind their own business. Literally. They're just jealous a-holes.

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electric_sheep

I bump into gym/exercise/health obsessed people every now and then, so I do sort of know what you mean. Honestly, I think the entire country is heading towards a mass, national dysfuntionality with regards to food and body image. We have really become quite obsessed. It's epitomized by the two extremes that seem so prominent in the US today... obesity, inactivity, and total obsession with food, counter-balanced by the health obsessed and the "skinny" obsessed.

 

I live near a small, local college and man... there were no where near as many overweight young people when I was in college. So, the national obsession is not without reason.

 

Also, the national "average" is now so far away from what is considered the national "ideal" that tension is almost inevitable. The "ideal" has yet to catch up with the reality on the ground. I'd love it if the "ideal" would shift back to what it was in the 50's even... when our country supposedly embraced a more realistic and fuller figured look:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/kioser13/marlyn_monroe.jpg

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/covergallery/img/2004/jul162004_774_lg.jpg

 

Frankly, I don't see many people walking around that look that good nowadays.

 

You have girls starving themselves to be skinny, and other people celebrating "fatness" and being almost antagonistic to skinny people. My mom is skinny and she says she gets nasty looks all the time from overweight women.

 

Each side sort of feeds off the other... just like the cultural wars have been fanned by the trend in politically charged news shows like The O'Reiley Factor.

 

I do think the root of the obsession is the widening gulf between the national "ideal" and the "reality" of our expanding waistlines.

 

I was never one to really voice my opinions about exercise or nutrition if I felt they were uninvited, but I admit I've become more interested in the subject as it's become more clear my girlfriend and I have dissimilar lifestyle habits, and the dissimilarity is threatening our relationship. I guess I'm just a product of this culture, and it's hard to undo 20 something years of socialization. I'd be perfectly happy dating Marlyn Monroe, though. Isn't that open minded of me? ;)

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blind_otter
[rant]Okay, I will confess. I hate the gym and find nothing more boring than using the equipment or being in a work-out class unless it's kick-boxing. My preference is to do a combination of yoga/pilates at home, while listening to whatever music I choose and also walking, blading, swimming, etc. for cardio.

 

Part of what I hate about the gym is people staring, whether male or female. While this doesn't bother me on a daily basis because I also people watch, working out is such a personal thing. If you go to the gym, do it for your health v. rudely staring at other people. [/rant over]

 

TBF, I agree with you 100%. I hate the gym. I went like a maniac for some years when I was younger, and it just grosses me out. It's like you're eating other people's sweat. I mean, everyone is sweating heavily in there. The sweat has to evaporate off the large number of bodies packed into that space.

 

I also prefer to practice yoga or pilates by myself.

 

I hate to say it, but growing up I never knew anyone who went to the gym. My parents didn't exercise recreationally.

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electric_sheep

;)

 

I always hated gym people too. I joined one for the first time about a year or two ago so I could go with my girlfriend.

 

There is the inevitable people watching, but... to a certain degree this is understandable. There simply isn't anything else to do, and you aren't going anywhere, unlike when running outside, and the body builder guys have to look at SOMEthing when they are waiting between sets.

 

I used to really dislike these body builder guys, who I assumed were all egotistical a-holes with attitudes. Then I started talking to them, and to my surprise a lot of them are actually quite intelligent and nice. The whole "attitude" thing I was perceiving was completely a fabrication of my own mind. I just assumed big buff guys must have attitudes (much like a lot of guys assume an attractive girl must have an attitude), so I projected that onto them, when in fact most of them have no attitude at all.

 

So, being someone who used to HATE gym people and the gym, I can now say that a lot of it was in my head.

 

A well ventilated gym shouldn't be a nasty environment to be in, though I do occasionally walk by someone who stinks. With all the crap in the environment these days... car fumes, pollution, and everything else, it's arguably better than exercising outside (sadly). Also, my allergies prevent me from exercising outside for several months a year.

 

Anyway... I agree though, there is nothing like being in nature. I have a 5 mile run I do that takes me through a local park area, and I pass by black bears, bison, a Japanese tea garden, and wild turkey, which is totally awesome.

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I also hate it when people go, oh you're skinny now but wait till you get to my age. I think that's kinda rude, dont you think? They're really saying, 'you're gonna be fat later, haha'

 

Just tell 'em, "Sucks to be you then, huh? My metabolism hasn't slowed down yet 'cause I'm still young."

 

They're just hatin' on you. Ignore the b's.

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electric_sheep
I also prefer to practice yoga or pilates by myself.

 

There is a Yoga class that crashes my local cafe a couple of days a week, and my girlfriend and I find them far more preposterous than the gym people. We noticed they seem to place much emphasis on fashion. They all have cute California/hippie looking Yoga outfits, which just cracks us up because it's so stereotypical.

 

Of course, I'm sure these are nice people too.

;)

 

The thing is... for some people, the gym, or yoga classes, are just as much a social event as anything else. For others, they just want to go and that's it.

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There is a Yoga class that crashes my local cafe a couple of days a week, and my girlfriend and I find them far more preposterous than the gym people. We noticed they seem to place much emphasis on fashion. They all have cute California/hippie looking Yoga outfits, which just cracks us up because it's so stereotypical.

 

Of course, I'm sure these are nice people too.

;)

 

The thing is... for some people, the gym, or yoga classes, are just as much a social event as anything else. For others, they just want to go and that's it.

 

A guy asked me the other day if I work the guys while I'm at the gym. I said, "Of course not." He asked why, and I told him, "'Cause I'm there to work out. I don't have time for that crap."

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As someone who went from pretty obese to in decent shape and goes to the gym regularly.. I can say it is damn good for you. Emotionally, psychologically and physically.

 

I also don't go around throwing it in anyone's face... I may suggest to an overweight friend that they should consider changing their lifestyle but not be too intense about it. I may talk about how it's helped me... You don't have to be a PHd to know how it's good for you. It's your life, your body... These folks sound pretty annoying about it..

 

My ex was very petite... 5' 0" 100 lbs.. she had a bit a of 'tude so to speak. For a while she couldn't stand being around what she would say "fat women" because they all hated her.. or at least she thought they did. Thing is at points in her life she did have an eating disorder..

 

People can be pretty mean in a lot of ways. When I was a kid I was chubby and did get teased. Affected my self image for a long time. Men as they get older tend to let it go.. at least between each other. Women OTOH i have witnessed.. can sometimes be quite nasty between each other when it comes to their body images, competition etc.. and it definitely goes both ways.

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;)

 

I always hated gym people too. I joined one for the first time about a year or two ago so I could go with my girlfriend.

 

There is the inevitable people watching, but... to a certain degree this is understandable. There simply isn't anything else to do, and you aren't going anywhere, unlike when running outside, and the body builder guys have to look at SOMEthing when they are waiting between sets.

 

I used to really dislike these body builder guys, who I assumed were all egotistical a-holes with attitudes. Then I started talking to them, and to my surprise a lot of them are actually quite intelligent and nice. The whole "attitude" thing I was perceiving was completely a fabrication of my own mind. I just assumed big buff guys must have attitudes (much like a lot of guys assume an attractive girl must have an attitude), so I projected that onto them, when in fact most of them have no attitude at all.

 

So, being someone who used to HATE gym people and the gym, I can now say that a lot of it was in my head.

 

A well ventilated gym shouldn't be a nasty environment to be in, though I do occasionally walk by someone who stinks. With all the crap in the environment these days... car fumes, pollution, and everything else, it's arguably better than exercising outside (sadly). Also, my allergies prevent me from exercising outside for several months a year.

 

Anyway... I agree though, there is nothing like being in nature. I have a 5 mile run I do that takes me through a local park area, and I pass by black bears, bison, a Japanese tea garden, and wild turkey, which is totally awesome.

 

I don't see the gym as particularly social for myself. I go there to work out and that's about it. It's hard not to look at the other people there... I mean after all a lot are in great shape and as humans we can't help but look. I sure try not to ogle or stare... lol... sometimes it seems even sillier to try so hard not to look.

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I think what they are trying to impart on you is that just because you are petite and are not currently seeing the external effects of a horrendous diet, does not mean you are healthy.

 

I am sure if you were a smoker, they would ride you about that as well.

 

People just like to preach a healthy lifestyle. Its imbedded in our culture.

 

But, out of curiosity, why don't you exercise?

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I think what they are trying to impart on you is that just because you are petite and are not currently seeing the external effects of a horrendous diet, does not mean you are healthy.

 

I am sure if you were a smoker, they would ride you about that as well.

 

People just like to preach a healthy lifestyle. Its imbedded in our culture.

 

But, out of curiosity, why don't you exercise?

 

Doesn't mean she's not healthy, either. Maybe she gets enough activity in and is active in her daily life.

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So I work in an office. Im, 21 yrs old, 4'11 (im petite i know) and weigh 93 pounds. I eat constantly (small healthy meals, but on occasion some chocolate there) as I cant fit a large amount of food all at once. I dont exercise at all.

 

I just find it so annoying, that my coworkers feel the need to tell me that I should exercise. Just last week they told me im 'unhealthy'. Its just heaps annoying that they feel that they're healthier than thou just because they're following the latest diet they got from Cosmo magazine or Men's health.

 

Then they'll list of the calories, carbs bla bla they feel i should eat? Omg, start telling me that when you graduate from university with a medical degree. Not when your high-school dropout-personal-trainer tells you to.

 

Its like ALL the time. If by chance, I happen to have bought a choc muffin or baked goods to treat myslef, they go on and on. Something along the lines of "with what you eat, you should be as big as a house by now". Then the gym talk will follow..

 

Its so so routine. Its just getting boringly annoying now

 

Grrr...why can't ppl just leave me alone, let me eat my food. Its my own body, dammit.

 

I also hate it when people go, oh you're skinny now but wait till you get to my age. I think that's kinda rude, dont you think? They're really saying, 'you're gonna be fat later, haha'

 

Next time.. put your hands on your ears and go 'la-la-la-la' at the top of your lungs.. they might get the hint...

 

When I got pregnant (at 23) I was weighing 87 lbs... I didn't exercise either.. I could eat like a pig.. anything I wanted... So just count yourself lucky... they're probably jealous.. they probably just look at food and gain weight.. :laugh:

 

Nevermind what others say and think... you're happy.. you can eat whatever you want.. and yes you will get fatter with age... we all do.. so what? I'm 56 and I have a killer body.. still.. although I don't eat what I want (I have to be careful now).. I don't exercise.. (I get the 'you must go to the gym' all the time)...

 

Just enjoy your 'petiteness' you must be sooo cute.. :love:

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Just enjoy your 'petiteness' you must be sooo cute.. :love:

 

Just because someone is petite and thin, doesn't mean they are healthy and in shape. Plenty of heavier people are healthier than thinner people because of their exercise routine. This is a huge common misconception in our society that thin = healthy.

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Just because someone is petite and thin, doesn't mean they are healthy and in shape. Plenty of heavier people are healthier than thinner people because of their exercise routine. This is a huge common misconception in our society that thin = healthy.

 

Doesn't mean she's not healthy either.

You're like, in your 40's right? Totally different than a 21 year old. She could be getting enough activity in her everyday lifestyle while being in your 40s, well you are going to have to hit the gym for the same effect.

Also you are missing the point of this thread because she is tired of people lecturing her about it, and here 'ya go.

She already knows this.

It is very rude of coworkers to chide you for not exercising, anyway, how do they know you don't exercise? Gardening is exercise, walking down the street is exercise, etc. etc. etc.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying a treat once in a while and your coworkers have no business saying anything about this.

My grandma has lived to be 91, lived an active lifestyle, you'd think she was in her 70's, she never hit the gym a day in her life. lol

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Just because someone is petite and thin, doesn't mean they are healthy and in shape. Plenty of heavier people are healthier than thinner people because of their exercise routine. This is a huge common misconception in our society that thin = healthy.

 

 

I was petite.. and very healthy all my life.. I know lots of heavier people who have problems with diabetes... heart problems... high blood pressure...sorry but thin is healthier, in general, than heavy people.

 

From what I read, in her post, she's healthy... just fed up with lecturers (probably people with weight problems who are green of envy that she can eat anything she wants, as much as she wants)...

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I was petite.. and very healthy all my life.. I know lots of heavier people who have problems with diabetes... heart problems... high blood pressure...sorry but thin is healthier, in general, than heavy people.

 

From what I read, in her post, she's healthy... just fed up with lecturers (probably people with weight problems who are green of envy that she can eat anything she wants, as much as she wants)...

 

Yes, for the most part thinner is healthier for sure as excessive weight causes all kinds of health issues, but a thin person who doesn't exercise is not necessarily as healthy as a heavier person who does. Now, Im not talking 300 pounds and walking to the mailbox healthier, I mean like a 5'5" woman who is 150 pounds and does spin class 3 days a week and lifts weight healthier. She's still technically over-weight, but minimizing the weight damage by working out her heart and muscles. Cardio-vascular health is important, and doesn't come without doing the work.

 

With obesity out of control in the US, I suppose this is a hot topic around water coolers, and a lot of people are feeling the pressure to stay fit. Then, there are other crazy ones like me who work out because they actually love it. :)

 

I guess I would be one of those co-workers who would want to know why she doesn't exercise. lol. Not tell her why she SHOULD, but just wonder why she doesn't. I meet so few people who don't work on their bodies, as my work has me surrounded by fit people all day long, and my BF is a pro athlete. I think like-minded people tend to gravitate towards each other in this regard. I just find it genuinely interesting when people don't exercise. Truly.

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