14 July 2011

Exercise your right to shut up

There's a video game camp in Fredricton, NB that is under fire from glorified PE teacher (i.e. kinesiology professor), Gabriela Tymowsky. Apparently OMG! FAT KIDS might not be made miserable with the running for every hour of every day until they're appropriately thin!

Bite me, Gabriela. Bite my fat, video game playin' ass. Are you going to whine and bitch about drama camps? Art camps? Music camps? Kids there don't run all day. Or is it just video games that have your panties in a twist? How dare kids have fun doing what they like for a few days in the summer?! No no no. Not if Gabriela has her way. Those kids should be shamed into exercising themselves thin!

I have a question for you, Gabriela. What if the kids are already thin enough for your idea of healthy? Or maybe there isn't thin enough. Do they get to take a break from the exercise then? Or are video games on the list of Things That Make You FAT and therefore must never be done?

A quick search of the website shows that video games are only a part of the day. It's not like you show up at camp and play games all day. FFS, lady. Shut up. And CBC can go to hell for reporting it too. What's next? Old Man Angry at Kids on his Lawn? Because that's what this stinks of. A nosy, busybody who doesn't want kids to have any sort of fun that she doesn't approve of. I'll send my kids to any bloody camp I like, and I don't need a glorified PE teacher telling me whether or not it's good for them. Neither do the parents of the kids there.

I'm terribly sick of the attitude that fat people should be allowed to do nothing at all if it isn't part of their weight loss plan. I was in a Robin's Donuts once and a bunch of young assholes started harrassing a large woman for eating a doughnut. No one was stopping them. I was too afraid to (it was late, I was alone, I'd recently had a run in with some other young assholes). Finally she said, "JESUS CHRIST! I GET ONE FUCKING DOUGHNUT A MONTH IF I STICK TO MY DIET AND YOU'VE JUST FUCKING WRECKED IT FOR ME!" One of the assholes said, "It looks like it's one too many." She started to cry and they left laughing. That's what this reminds me of. Kids want to play video games over the summer and some asshole pipes up with, "You're too fat to play video games! That's not healthy!"

I've seen it from friends too. They see a fat kid eating something fattening and assume that's all he ever eats. They see a fat kid playing a video game and they make snarky comments that he never exercises. It's not fair. And it's not okay. Nor is shaming their parents. I've heard people I generally respect say that obese kids are victims of child abuse (and their idea of obese is a bit sketchy, at best). They claim that genetics are irrelevant or outliers, and feel completely justified in blaming parents for their kids' weight, not knowing for the first second what goes on in their homes. It drives me crazy.

And do you really think that depriving kids of the things they want to do in order to make them exercise is a "healthy choice"? Hell no, it isn't. I hated exercise when I was in school. They pushed and pushed us to do it. It was awful. I still hate it when I realize it's exercise. I like to do physical activity if it's for something else - like a long walk to the store. For the sake of it alone? GAH. It's tedious, it's infuriating. It makes me feel like crawling out of my skin, just thinking of it.

In a nutshell, STFU, Gabriela; you're making things worse.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok i feel you on this, but on the other hand what are people to expect when they see an over weight kid eating junk food? that he rarely eats it and that he works out 7 days a week? Well they can only assume that he became fat somehow, and that he eats junk food all the time would be the more logical choice. If they don't know him, they have no choice but to judge him by his appearence.

Luna said...

"they have no choice but to judge him by his appearence"

Um, sure they do. Just don't judge at all. There's no reason to.