A friend and reader of this blog sent me a video link to a news story that she thought would get a reaction out of me. As she has known me awhile, she guessed correctly. I was appalled at the video and because I found it so asinine as to be disturbing, I will not share the link nor the name of the person in the video with you. I am afraid that the true motive of the personal trainer was fame not empathy, as he claimed. And yes, I would label him notorious. By this point, you should be pretty curious about what has set me off. I will describe it now.
A very fit and attractive male personal trainer and model decided that to truly understand the struggles of his overweight clients, he should too be overweight. So in an exaggerated version of Supersize Me, he gorged himself and put on 90 pounds. His face is now swollen and his stomach protrudes. He has low back pain, and his cholesterol is significantly elevated. I believe he said that his blood sugar was also borderline for diabetes. He is now working out again, limiting his food intake and taking what he considers to be the same journey that his clients face.
I am pretty certain, though I did not conduct a survey, that the majority of people who are overweight and obese did NOT set out to make themselves that way. People truly struggle with self image and issues around eating - such as; food as reward, food as love, food as a coping skill. Learning new ways to eat and to nurture oneself require a lot more than the “empathy” of a personal trainer who spent the last six months or so force feeding himself.
I would add another note about empathy and how this very useful skill can be misconstrued. There are people on both side of an issue, most often addiction, who think that to legitimately help a person or to be helped by a person, both have had to have had the same experience. I.e. alcoholics run AA, former smokers are the “only” ones that can help current smokers quit, and to help a person control their eating one must have also struggled with eating in the past. This shared experience is the concept that drives empathy.
So true that, fine. Where do we draw the line? Can I help you parent your children if I have had none? Must I have beat my children in order to teach you not to? Do people who work in domestic violence have to have been a victim or perpetrator? Can I treat your diabetes if I have never had diabetes? How about that blockage in your artery? Must all cardiac surgeons have a history of heart attack? Must all psychiatrists have a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar in order to medicate others? Do you have to have had a mastectomy to perform one? Perhaps our personal trainer would like to smoke for 20 years to see if he can get lung cancer and a little empathy there too.
Ok, true, I would like a runner to treat my running injuries, but that does not mean a non runner doesn’t know about muscles. Indeed, professionals must at times profess a lack of personal experience and acknowledge instead their education, awareness and experience treating others with similar problems. So if empathy escapes you, try honesty. People respect and respond to honesty and a genuine desire to help.
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