The Fit Kids

Gym class. Sweaty, hormonal teenage boys running around attempting to showcase their masculinity and physical prowess to the girls, as if they cared.

The gym teacher, trying his best to motivate and keep everyone moving seems more interested in classroom teaching than actual physical education.

But in the corner, there sits a certain few. Every gym class has them, and everyone does their best to forget them. Even those "certain few" try to forget themselves.

The overweight ones. The obese ones. 

Gym class brings to bare their largest insecurities: their physical inabilities and shortcomings. Like a beached whale stranded on its back, helpless, the kids who simply have a diet are exposed to a world where it is expected they keep up with the "fit kids." This theme of "keeping up with the Joneses" has been prevalent in America since the boom of consumerism in the 1920s.

They're graded on performance. Not effort. That means their effort goes to waste if they can't perform. Soon after class starts they relegate themselves to the corner, attempting to hide in plain sight.

We live in a world where being large is a scourge. It is a physical deformity that must be corrected. I am not going to suggest that we should encourage unhealthy lifestyles that, in most cases, lead to obesity, but I am going to suggest that we accept those who are marked by this "scourge." 

Public gym membership prices are unattainable for many, and if they do have the wallet to afford it, they'll find themselves surrounded by the "ideal person": muscular, slim, fit, and not afraid to be shirtless in public.

It is our job to change this. We must make it so that it is not normal to be large, but it is okay if you are. We must make it so that obesity is not a physical deformity for correction, but a state of being that can be changed. And we must encourage the change, but not judge before the change can take place.