So tell me....what do you LIKE about being obese

I've been following with some interest what has been happening in Atlanta, Georgia, in Uncle Sam's backyard. Recent studies show that 40% of children in Atlanta are obese, and what I believe is worse, 50% of Atlantans aren't that fussed about it. This just stuns me, but having followed some Social Media traffic, I'm perhaps not that surprised about the findings. Strong4Life is a campaign created to raise awareness of the issue. You may have seen some of their advertisements with obese children telling the camera how they feel, and what they can't do. Check here to see one of the ads http://www.strong4life.com/

One of my friends in the USA, Tim Taylor of Bodies Unlimited Personal Training Studios even went so far as to offer one of the critics of the campaign to raise awareness of this issue free training through his Facebook page, an offer which she is yet to take up, despite the fact that she is again on Facebook criticising the campaign. You can read one of Tim's posts here bodiesunlimitedtrainingstudios

I recently posted on Facebook and asked when we as a collective agreed that it was ok to be obese or overweight, given that 60% of Australians are overweight and around 20 - 25% are obese. There was some really interesting feeback, and some serious back and forth from some Alpha type trainers (I was one of course!) To my mind, if more than 50% of the population is overweight, then the majority of people agree that it is acceptable, or else....you guessed it....they would do something about it.

So in a remarkable change for me, I'm not going to preach about the benefits of training and eating lean and clean. One of my EFM Health Club Geelong members is a psychologist, and amongst the numerous pearls of wisdom he bestows upon me, he reminds me to 'emphasise the positives'.

So....tell me....what do you LIKE about being overweight? In order to help you here, I've given you some things that being overweight does to you, so you can decide which of these floats your boat:

1. Not being able to lift your body weight up if you are on the ground
2. Having a massive amount of visceral fat around your internal organs
3. Not being able to bend over to tie up your shoe laces, at least without having to hold your breath
4. Knowing that you probably won't live much beyond 60 so you won't need to worry about superannuation and retirement
5. Carrying an extra person's bodyweight around every day
6. Elevating your blood pressure through the roof
7. Increasing the likelihood of having diabetes
8. Being at a much higher risk of having a heart attack
9. Having to constantly adjust your clothing so your tummy doesn't peek out
10. Having to go through your wardrobe for something that doesn't make you look fat for the wedding you are going to
11. Not being able to play sport or have fun at the park with your kids
12. For Pete's sake, not even being able to do a push up
13. Helps you justify not doing stuff that would be really cool, like surfing, riding a bike, jogging, swimming, playing tennis, kicking a football...

I know I've only listed 13 things that are really cool about being obese, but you can already see how much fun it is. You don't have to list them all, maybe you've got some ideas of your own?

Now before you go and get on your high horses here folks, understand where I am coming from. When I finally decided that I was sick of being obese, I was sitting in a car 10 hours a day, eating donuts to keep my energy up, drinking copious amounts of coffee and soft drink, and I just knew that I could do something about my weight whenever I wanted to. I just didn't, for such a long time.

So the list above? That was my list of things I was dealing with.

So...tell me....what do you LIKE about being obese?