Motivation to Be More Healthy

According to an article entitled "Hating on Fat People Makes Them Fatter," shaming overweight people is not the way to motivate them to loose weight.  

The article refers to another story that I missed that happened back in the fall. An anti-obesity campaign in Minnesota created controversy because of its shaming/blaming nature.  The creators of the ads defend them saying "Our intent in creating these ads was really just to show good parents having moments of realization that they needed to change their own behavior in order to send the right message to their kid." 

That "moment of realization" thing is what jumped out at me from the article.

How many times have you had one of those moments related to weight and health?

I call them "decision points."  The point at which we decide that we do have a choice.  That we can make conscious choices about how we live: what we eat and how much we exercise. Sometimes they are big things. For a pastor friend of mine, his decision point was when he had a heart attack.  He said, "it got my attention. It was a wake-up call." He changed his eating and exercise habits.

But, for some of us, there can be smaller moments. Not too terribly long ago, I was on the campus at Birmingham-Southern College. For those that don't know the campus, it is built on a hill. I was walking across campus with someone much younger and fitter than I am. We were late for a meeting and cutting across the hill. As I struggle with my bookbag and purse to climb a few steps, I thought of nightmares that I had had across the years.  Those ones where you are trying to run away from some terrible thing and your legs are not working. Your legs feel like they are filled with lead and you can hardly lift them. Right then, I thought to myself, "This is it. I'm not feeling this way again."

Motivation comes in many forms, but rarely does it come from shaming.