I’ve decided I’m just not going to give my money to commercial gyms anymore. At least in this town. None are particularly size-friendly – really – they’re all “Come here and lose weight!” and I personally prefer a women-only gym. There are two women’s gyms: Curves, which no way am I going to; and Fernwood, which was tolerable for a while, but really, it’s just a counterproductive environment. Fernwood is a national chain and franchise gym. They call themselves a “health club” rather than a gym, and they have a weight-loss program/”clinic” running in all the locations. This program is based around shakes (so you can have a “chocolate” “treat” and still get your vitamins! AHHHHHHHH!!) and “lifestyle change”. When I first joined Fernwood, the weight-loss bit in my location was relatively discreet, just one room and a few of the shakes on display on a shelf.
Then, they put up these posters on the back of the toilet doors. Posters about an inch wide, saying “If you think these posters are slim, wait until you see yourself in the mirror after doing our Slimplicity program!” (Yes, it has that dumb name.) And started pushing the shakes and bars and stuff a lot more. And ran their own “Biggest Loser” competition. And had this thing called a “Butterfly Club” (or someting like that) where you could be in a group with other people trying to lose weight a la WW, and the spam they sent me for that said “Join us and be a beautiful butterfly for spring!”: WTF. Seriously, that sounds like it’s straight from a Weight Watchers ad from 1972. I don’t want to be a butterfly, they live for like a week. I don’t want to be a delicate little thing about to die at any moment.
So no, not giving my money to crap like that. I’d join a friendly YMCA if they had any here, but they don’t. (I’m fond of weight machines, which are expensive to have in your own home, as well as taking up the entire room.)
Instead, I gave some money to Megan Garcia (well, hopefully she gets decent royalties!) and got her yoga book and DVD. And I’m going to give some money to a local non-profit org that runs great tai chi classes, and a local teacher who does fun bellydancing classes, when the new term starts up. I love moving and I want to do it more and more, but only doing things that are fun enough to not grind my brain down to “lose weight, fatty” flatlining. Which I can do by avoiding the negative environment that gyms here seem to have – that certain air of desperation and fear from people punishing themselves.
I really, really hate the whole exercise as a means to an end – that is, weight loss. It takes all the fun out of it for most people. Back when I was in primary school, in the early-mid 80s, before the Childhood! Obesity! Crisis!, some directive came form on high that children should be doing some kind of aerobics routine. Hey, it was the 80s. So they lined everyone up on the big asphalt area, put the popular girls up in front of us to be the “instructors”, played whatever crappy 80s pop tunes 9-year-olds liked at the time, and had us all do star jumps (jumping jacks) and side bends and all that, for twenty minutes every Tuesday and Thursday. They called it “Health Hustle”. And boy, did 98% of the kids hate it. Moaning and grumbling as we all made our way to it, moaning and grumbling through it, and moaning and grumbling afterwards. The exact same kids that happily spent all recess and lunch zooming around the playground, and then played sport or went to ballet or tap or went swimming or biking or horse riding or helping with the farm chores after school. Health Hustle sucked the fun out of physical activity, because it was mandated “for your health”. It just plain sucked, really. I don’t think anyone’s health was improved at all. The fat kids stayed fat and the skinny kids stayed skinny, just with a more abiding hatred of aerobics classes that stayed with them their whole life, except for the 2% who really liked that kind of regimented program. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like in schools these days.
Moral of the story: Find something you like and boycott the punishment pushers, including that sneaky bit in your brain.
Google some combination of ‘fat/overweight/obese’ and ‘ergonomics’, and mostly what comes up is advice for health workers on how to lift and move heavy patients. I think I found one sole article on how fat peoples’ bodies can be shaped, proportioned, and move and settle differently to more slender people, and even then it wasn’t very specific. What with the Obesity! Epidemic! OMG! you might have thought more ergonomics specialists and equipment manufacturers might have thought about this, but it seems they either just plain don’t think about fat people, are embarrassed or repulsed to think about fat people, or possibly think that the only things fat people do are move from their donut-crumb-encrusted sofa to their mobility scooter to go get more donuts and fizzy drinks.
Here’s the thing: nearly all equipment in the world has seemingly been designed for an average height and “normal” weight MAN. Office equipment (even though there’s all those pink collar jobs), medical equipment, vehicle interiors, everything. Anyone else is an afterthought, and frankly this is incredibly bad design practice. In my line of work, which is the intarwebs, we (at least where I work) consider that accessibility has to be thought of and incorporated into design from the very start. And this doesn’t just mean access for people with a disability (which unfortunately a lot of web developers seem to think starts and ends with blind people using screen readers). It means people with all kinds of equipment, internet speeds, educational ability, physical and mental disabilities, and so on. Not just Male Nerds With Spiffy Computers.
If only designers of other things would make such considerations. I’ve never seen so much whining as when access for disabled people has to be incorporated into new buildings (it’s the law!). “You mean I have to spend an extra $2000 installing a ramp? WHINE. It’s TOO HARD.” Yeah, whatever. Fuck off.
And then there are people who may not be disabled but are simply shaped differently to tall-ish not-fat men. I have really, really noticed this at work. If you are reasonably fat, your body has that extra padding, and it can change the way your legs and arms are positioned when you sit at a desk. If your sides are chunky (hands up who has side boobage!), your arms place wider than is usually expected. This can lead to shoulder straining and even more ulnar deviation and such than is also expected. See how your forearms are flat to keep your hands palm-down when you type? And you have to bring them close to your middle line to place them on the keyboard? This is a fairly unnatural position even for slim people, it’s much better for your arms to have your palms closer to perpendicular – hence the shape of a lot of ergonomic keyboards. And if you’re fat, this strain can be aggravated by unsuitable equipment. Or if you have large breasts that are in the way of ‘keeping your elbows close to your sides’, a standard “how to sit at your desk” instruction.
(I realise there are a couple of specialist catalogues with stuff for large people, but these are usually household, travel, or personal hygiene items. Office stuff, not so much.)
If you have fat thighs, or even just standard womanly thighs with the entirely normal fat pads on the inner, and you sit with your knees apart you might not be able to use a standard footrest, as those things are pretty narrow. Standard office chairs often have fairly narrow seats, which can cause bad posture from poor pelvic support. The shaping of the seats is made for man-thighs and man-arse, so fat people, and often many women, can have trouble aligning their thigh bone to be parallel to the ground (another standard instruction for correct seat positioning). It may not be comfortable for you to even do that. Another standard positioning instruction is to have your upper and lower legs at a right angle. I think this was mentioned in a Shapely Prose thread in some comments about yoga, but people with large thighs and calves can have more tendon/ligament/etc extension when bending knees. Again, this 90 degree knee angle may not be comfortable or appropriate. Maybe if you have a large belly certain seating positions are uncomfortable for belly-squishing reasons.
Most office chairs are only rated to 100kg/220lbs. You have to pay nearly four times as much to get a chair rated for over that, and even then most are only rated to about 150kg/350lbs. Over that? Good luck. (I have to wonder about the 100kg rating. What with people getting taller, there’s heaps more people (mostly men) over 183cm/6′ tall and you can easily be 100kg/220lbs at that height and not even be fat.)
Women with very large breasts, fat people with extra front (whether belly or chest), and pregnant women may not be able to sit right up to their desks, making further problems with arm extension and posture. They might not be able to lower the desk to the correct height for arm alignment if the desk is adjustable at all.
A standard mouse isn’t really ergonomically good for anyone, but they can be even worse if you have very small or large hands.
And you know if this was written about in a mainstream newspaper or magazine, it’d be all “These problems are yet another reason you should lose weight, fatty!” and “More hidden costs of the Obesity! Crisis!” – it’s always about YOU having to change. It’s your fault. It’s your punishment to be uncomfortable until you resemble Average Guy as much as possible. So, screw that. Don’t put up with being uncomfortable. Look at what the standard ergonomic seating directions are and modify them to suit your body size and shape. Large workplaces often provide workstation assessments. Get one, and point out to the assessor that you really need suitable equipment – a chair made for large people or tiny people, a split keyboard so you can have your arms in a more natural position, a wide footrest so your knees aren’t angled painfully, and so on. If the assessor baulks, feel free to ask for a different one who’s more open-minded. If you do most of your computer work at home or somewhere where they won’t pay for specialised equipment, buy the best you can afford.
I do realise that not everyone’s workplace may be accommodating. If you have an Occupational Health and Safety area or representative, or a disability advocate, or union rep, or anyone similar, talk to them and see if anything can be done. If you can’t buy or modify anything, or have things provided, remember to take a break every 15-20 minutes, a minute or so of standing up and stretching is great. Actually you should do that anyway. 
Kinesis makes some nice wide-set keyboards and ergo mice and trackballs. (They are not paying me to say this, I just like their stuff.) Slightly pricey, but I personally would rather fork out the money for one now than pay thousands to a physiotherapist later on. Which I had to do about six years ago.
What are your experiences with office setups as either a fat person or a woman? Have I missed anything? I tried to think of things that weren’t related to ME ME ME directly. (And I didn’t go into actual disabilities because there are people rather better qualified to talk about that than me.) Even things that seem inconsequential – like having to stand on a step to see the display on the fax machine because it’s on a too-high-for-you bench.
Everyone has a right to a safe working environment.
