Mix FM’s Chrissie Swan recently took ‘Fitmum’ Sharny Keiser to task about some unkind comments she and husband Julias made regarding overweight people to news.com.au last year:
“There is a small proportion of obese people who genuinely need help. The problem is the other group of people who are fat and lazy; who just take advantage of all the help that is out there because they think they deserve it.”
Ouch.
Admittedly, even pregnant Sharny looks slimmer and healthier than I do, even before I had kids and I’ve been quite upfront about my own struggle with weight, post baby but I think attacking pregnant women by claiming they should just deny cravings and keep up a stringent exercise plan is going too far.
Some things are just sacred… and a pregnant woman’s appetite should be one of them: ‘Hey, I’m growing a human being over here people, back off!’ should be their collective shout.
Yes, it’s true; If you want to grow healthy kids, they need to see a healthy lifestyle modeled by you. But when someone is overweight, it doesn’t mean they’re not working their butt off (quite literally). They may just be going about it the wrong way. The science world still can’t agree as to what exactly contributes to obesity but I know from personal experience that my weight loss journey was 80% changing what I ate and 20% exercise. After all, it takes 30 minutes of solid exercise to burn off one donut. So, if you’re making a number of bad food choices throughout the day, you won’t even come close to burning it off in your daily work out.
Reading through Sharny’s website, I can see she’s all about encouraging mums and mums-to-be to make positive choices for themselves and their families. Maybe she just needs some tips in tact so as not to leave a trail of PR destruction in her ‘fitmum’ wake.