The PC of fitness and fatness

Zamboni

Thinking about this a lot recently.

I was talking to a friend last night about health and fitness and the guy asked me for some fitness advice.
I told the guy that had about 1-2 stone of fat to lose and his girlfriend gave out to me for calling him fat :pac:

'You can't say things like that' or 'don't be mean' when in fairness the guy was asking for some honest advice.
If I called him a fat bastard I'd expect that reaction. Then again if I'd said he had excess adipose tissue situated around the abdominal and gluteal regions he wouldn't known what I was on about.

If someone is overweight or obese is it wrong to say it?
Surely it's only a insult if it's not true?
This is not a one off sutuation either.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

You were perfectly right to say it.

The girlfriend just didn't want to hear it. Stuff like that is probably best said on a one-to-one basis.

rubadub

An easier way is not to ask their weight, or mention how much they should lose. e.g. I would say to somebody my height, an ideal weight is 11.5-12.5stone, and leave them to figure out how much they have to lose themselves. I am not great at guessing weights anyway.

My mates GF was talking about me losing weight a while ago and I told her I was now 12stone (she asked), she is a little overweight and asked me to guess her weight, I said I have no idea and I am bad at guessing and don't want to. If she insisted I would of course have gone low!

Hugh_C

rubadub wrote: »

I would say to somebody my height, an ideal weight is 11.5-12.5stone,

You must be vertically challenged (or a girl).



I know I'm a bit on the heavy side, but when you get to my height (195 cm) I don't necessarily think that the body mass index holds true. In theory I should be 95 kg (15 stone) but given my build and age I'd look emaciated at that weight. I'm about 8 kg overweight by that scale but I don't feel obese.

Zamboni

rubadub wrote: »

My mates GF was talking about me losing weight a while ago and I told her I was now 12stone (she asked), she is a little overweight and asked me to guess her weight, I said I have no idea and I am bad at guessing and don't want to. If she insisted I would of course have gone low!

You could have just said 'Well I wouldn't'

EileenG

Totally agree you can't go up to someone and say "You are a fat bastard, you need to lose weight". Though sometimes I'm tempted....

But if someone asks you for straightforward advice, you are doing them a disservice if you don't tell the truth.

I find it helps if you talk about "bodyfat" rather than "being fat". The concept of dropping your percentage of bodyfat seems less threatening than losing a couple of stone.

omgiluvxmas

he asked you but you'd have to be some **** to actually care if somebody is fat or not.

c - 13

Fat has become a vulgar word, people hear it and immediately get there knickers in a twist regardless of the context it is used in. I mean saying someone has high body fat % (when they obviously do) is not akin to calling someone a fat c*nt in the case the OP mentioned when they were specifically asked about it.

Its kind of funny that PC-ness has taken a bit of a turn here. Some people have no problem saying to someone else "Jesus your very tall/short etc." but yet wouldnt say "Jesus your fat" even though the first one is a genetic trait and the second is something within the persons ability to change (except for the very minor % that actually do have glandular issues).

davyjose

If anyone made an unsolicited negative comment on my appearance, I'd quite simply tell them to fook off. If you want to give someone a compliment, that's fine, however we don't need to have our flaws pointed out to us on a regular basis.
Having said that, if I asked, I'd expect an honest reply.