What of Overweight Personal Trainers

So last night I was fortunate enough to score tickets to a local professional Ice Hockey team, and while I found it really difficult (as if I was murdering a family member) cheering for the home team and not the Philadelphia Flyers (who were not even playing), I did just that. However, in between periods and even during periods when play was slow (read as: no one was getting slammed against a hard wood board!) my wife and I began an conversation with a fella behind us. Primarily because this guy made it abundantly clear that this was his first hockey game, that he was taken here by someone he was training, and that his profession was a personal trainer. Obviously without halt my wife and I turned so quickly we probably caused permanent brain damage. An interesting thing about our turning so quickly. It's a psychological effect known as "Attentional attunement." You can do a few neat little studies to test this effect. For example, if you are a teacher or a tutor, then do this right before a big exam. Ask them to remember a list of words, say 50 or so. 30 of those words should be randomly selected words, the others should be related to tests, test anxiety, etc (e.g., words like: test, mark, grade, question, etc). Chances are if you students play along with this little experiment (and care about their grades) they will be much better at remembering these test-related words. The same is true with just about anything. Alcoholic 'hear' and remember more words that deal with, well ethanol injected liquids. Similar effects can be shown in people addicted to drugs and sex. It even occurs in relation to race perceptions, but that's for another post. When it comes to fitness (addicts) we are not immune. Put a group of people who care about losing weight into a lab and ask them to remember a set of words that include words such as fat, skinny, weight, calories, etc. Guess what words they remember best?  

So in the few minutes it took for my wife and I to recover from our minor head turning concussion, our eyes began to re-focus and what we saw was 1) amazing, but 2) not uncommon. There, sitting behind us was one of the largest men (& I dont mean muscular) I've ever laid my eyes on. He must have easily been 350, maybe more, pounds.  This couldn't be the guy pitching himself as the Personal Trainer, could it? Yes, it was. This is now the third time I've met a personal trainer that, well, is fat! This seems completely inane to me and makes me wonder how this guy could even get a client, let alone be allowed to graduates PT school. I mean, it's tantamount to being a Cracker Barrel regular who's profession is nutritionist - makes not fucking sense. I wonder about these people: why did they get into this profession? Where they once thin? Are they trying to battle their own issues with being overweight? Do they think they represent the epitome of fitness and thus people will be lining up around the corner to sign up for a PT session with them? Well I could never, in good conscious do such. I pay for my wife's PT sessions and we agree that we would not pay over $100/month to someone who did not "look the part" - you could be educated until you are blue in the face, but damn it, if you cannot practice what you preach then how I can I pay you? I couldn't. Not sure how anyone else feels... Could you pa your hard earned $$ to an overweight PT? Why? How?