Today I found myself saddened by the state of a collegue I hadn’t seen in maybe 6 months. He is an awesome teacher and a wealth of knowledge. We could all learn things from this man which is why he was a presenter today. I am going to leave out his name just in case he ever runs across this……….
It was pretty clear to me that he had gained quite a bit of weight on top of already being obese. We started with an activity called Peach Pit. You stand in a circle and each person shares a peach (good thing) and a pit (bad thing) about your summer. Since there was about 35 of us, the activity took quite a while. 5 minutes in my collegue had to sit down. I got tired of standing after about 20 minutes but no one else ever had to sit down. While he was presenting, I could hear him getting short of breath from standing and walking during his presentation. It made me very sad. I want to reach out to him. He heard me announce that my peach was getting so close to my goal weight over the summer and keeping up my fitness routine. I was hoping he would ask me questions about how I did it. I was hoping he would ask for advice. But he did not.
I’m worried about him. He’s clearly on a path that will lead to an early death. This man is such a gift to our profession and has so many wonderful things ahead of him even though I’d guess him to be in his 50s. I know what people see when they look at him. It’s the same things I used to think about myself. How is this guy going to help me if he can’t help himself? How good of a teacher can he be if he loses his breath during the lesson? Neither of these things are true but I know they were thought during the presentation today.
So what am I going to do? Nothing. I can’t make any choices for him. I don’t want to make him feel even worse than he must. But, what I can do is share my journey with him. I’m going to stay in contact with him and update him on my status. I’m hoping that the story of my success will make him consider doing something for himself. Maybe he will but maybe he won’t. I can guarantee that every morbidly obese person you meet has at least THOUGHT about losing the weight and what it would be like to be healthy. You can’t make the choice for anyone else or motivate anyone to start. BUT maybe the knowledge that it CAN be done might inspire him to try.