Jonathan Vu

Have you ever watched that show “Celebrity Fit Club”, on VH1? There’s a shrink on that show because it’s been observed that people are fat largely due to psychological reasons. Fat people recognize that they’re in an unhealthy state. They know there’s a straight forward solution. However, they often fail to get in shape due to several reasons: laziness, being unclear on where to start, fear of trying and failing, lack of the ability to properly assess what they can realistically achieve, lack of support, or lack of hope. Meanwhile, they continuously make poor decisions that contribute to their unhealthy state, sometimes taking half-assed efforts that lead to food binging and less hope for better. And that’s why fat people remain fat.

This is totally just my personal hunch. I don’t have any training in psychology, but I think “fat” mentality isn’t unique to physically fat people. And I think being mentally “fat” is a much harder condition to snap out of than the physical counterpart.

A person with mental fat-ism is someone who’s got potential to be really awesome (or at least better off than their current state), however they squander their potential for no good reasons. Often times they have an ideal situation they’d like to be in: like a happy relationship, being financially stable, or having a job they actually like. But for some reason they just don’t take the necessary actions to make things happen. There could be several reasons why they don’t take action: laziness, being unaware of what actions to take, fear of trying and failing, lack of the ability to properly assess what they can realistically achieve, lack of support, or lack of hope. See some commonalities? Like the physically fat, mentally fat people also sometimes make half-assed efforts for self improvement, only to hit a dead end. With every failure, the idea that they can’t be better sets in, leading to mental obesity.

I know it’s cliche, but it’s during those moments of failure that a person needs to get back on there feet and keep on truckin to avoid falling into the cycle. It’s about looking at the big picture. Sure the first, second, or fifteenth try didn’t work out, but on a long enough time line, with perseverance, any goal can be achieved.

Some people just don’t know how to take care of themselves to maintain a level of mental fitness. They consume way too much junk information , and exercise their thoughts way too little. I’m not proposing giving up fun and vegging out once in a while. I just think engaging in mentally stimulating activity as often as possible can make anyone better.

Being mentally fat can be sadder than being physically fat. At least physically fat people can be jolly.

Chew on that as food for thought.