to think that an adult woman's physical fitness might have a lot to do with....

[HidingInTheHonsCupboard]

....what her periods were like as a teenager, and her gym teachers attitude towards them if they were awful?

Inspired by the thread where an employer asks whether a heavy period is a valid reason for being off work - and vivid recollections of regularly standing dizzy and humiliated in front of a class of giggling girls as the vile teacher exclaims loudly "you can't STILL be on your period, and if you are, light exercise will help --you faint again". shudder*

Here we are again Scarlett. I said I was going to do some work, didn't I?

No I don't agree with that for the simple reason I don't know anyone who enjoyed doing PE when they were on a heavy period.

However, we were made to get on with it and as hard as that was at times...I'm grateful for the 'get on with it' attitude it gave me.

As much as my world stopped turning when I was on a period, everyone else's kept spinning.

It's so true, Ariel (great name btw ).

I remember once being coerced into playing basketball. I turned out to be really good at it (I was 5 foot 8 and a size 16 by the age of 14!) and almost single-handedly won a match. Everyone cheered and I looked over at the PE teacher and she yelled at me something about smirking and showing off, and never ever mentioned it again. Imagine someone who is really awful at maths FINALLY getting a maths problem right....and instead of being praised and encouraged being shouted at for showing off

Needless to say I never played it again.

Stupid bitchcow from hell. Did you ever see her again?

And basketball can be such a laugh as well.

I used to lie to get out of PE because of what we had to wear. Imagine being freakishly tall and big-hipped and being told you have to wear nothing but knickers and a vest to go running around the hockey pitch in plain view of dozens of huge windows full of mocking faces. It;s awful. Sometimes I genuinely would;ve minded a jolly game of something or other, but the humiliation of being forced to walk around more or less naked when you're double the size of everyone else was just too much. I have never forgotten it: not ever. They wouldn't dream of forcing girls to dress like that now - I hope, anyway!

Ariel, I didn't, no. And there was a bit of a scandal when accusations were made about her the year we left and did a kind of yearbook thingy...

I do wonder if she can have been quite as callous and evil as it seemed at the time. Probably just thoughtless and totally unempathetic.

No, but for me it has had an influence on the type of physical activity I enjoy.

I detested PE at school. And yes, I had heavy periods and one of those awful teachers who claimed that physical activity helps period pain. (FAOD, Mrs Hughes you old cowbag, sitting on the sofa with a hot water bottle and prescription drugs helps with the pain - I can confirm this after 23 years of experimenting with various methods. Running around a field in the cold does absolutely nothing to help.)

I still have an aversion to gym classes. I hate being told what to do by an instructor. They remind me of school PE classes. But it doesn't affect my level of physical fitness. I'm and adult and can choose what I do. I go to the gym, run, swim, do yoga (ok, it's a class but the teacher doesn't exactly bark instructions) and could give most people 10 years my junior a run for their money in fitness terms.

I'm sorry, but "dozens of huge windows full of mocking faces" has made me roar! The bastards. Why weren't they applying themselves to their Chemistry?

I think PE must attract the thoughtless and totally empathetic, from what I hear of others' awful experiences :(. LIke I said, in our school, we were very lucky. Plus I had this idea of "Games" from Enid Blyton and Anne Digby etc and really wanted to be jolly good at them. Even when Y10 Pe teacher boomed that I had a large bottom for a skinny person. Coming from someone with an arse the size of Brazil, that was a bit rich, I must say.

Enid fucking Blyton never mentioned periods, damn her.

I think it is a combination of teenage self-consciousness to begin with, and then as Quintessentially says, work kicks in and doing exercise becomes harder because of time.

But using memories of PE lessons as a reason for being unfit as an adult is a total cop out.

notyummy don't you accept that years of humiliation and misery in childhood and adolescence can affect an adult, in all sorts of fields, not just PE? I thought that was pretty generally accepted

that's not to say that we're all helpless slaves to our past. Just that the past can and does affect people.

Ariel am snorting at 'Enid fucking Blyton'

I'm not sure that heavy periods = aversion to exercise tbh.

I've always suffered with heavy periods (currently under consultant care) but enjoyed PE at school.

What was more noticeable was at 13/14 any sort of sport became very uncool for girls. All of a sudden instead of competing for places on a team you were trying to scrape together enough players for one.

I am not arguing that it can have an effect on a person - just that it shouldn't be a reason for being unfit. I can even get why it may make people reticent about exercising in public. I too was a fat girl in gym knickers. It means I would never want to play hockey, or do track and field as I hated them passionately. Why should that stop me doing an exercise DVD at home? Or going for a long walk (in normal, flattering clothes) over some hills?

Notyummy - yes you're right in a way, and I am certainly not one for blaming one's troubles on others. I have overcome it and am now respectably fit and the sort of person that would do a 10 mile yomp out of choice/swim 1km before breakfast, despite still looking appalling in a swimming costume. But you see, it's about how it gives you a sense of the kind of person you are, if you see what I mean. For some people, that humiliation and mockery can contribute not just to your feelings about sport and fitness but who you are. You stop thinking of yourself as being like everyone else, but as someone who doesn't do 'that sort of thing'.

It's all very complex and sad actually.

I had a or teacher who hated me for no reason!! I was sporty (at first) and played netball and hockey. She was always screaming at me and no one else and even sent me out the gym for sneezing once

I quit the clubs she even worked with and then my dad bought a
Sweet shop and here I am today
pokes belly

I did have bad periods and was on the pill from a very early age to try control them and my moods

pocpoc i hear you, I went along to the netball team meeting. And got left to stand by the side of the pitch in my tiny gym skirt and tshirt in the cold for an hour. Teacher didn't even swap me in once. Bitch.

There was a particular PE teacher who picked on me all through high school, even when she didn't teach me anymore.

I was plump, uncoordinated, but tried hard.

She was a short fat evil b*tch from hell that I still wouldn't pee on if she were on fire.

I have never had problem periods, but I loathed sport at school. I was very self conscious and thought people laughed at me (well, they did). I also hated team sports. I did anthing to get out of PE (including a distinct memory of saying to my teacher 'I can't do gynastics because I have a detached retina' at the age of 9. God knows where I got that from, I must have seen it on Crossroads or something. It didn't work.

I also hated cross country. It was so miserable and neverending.

But, I really got into running in my 20s. I regularly ran 6, 10 mile runs and really adored it (until I got shin splints). I still like walking and hiking, and swimming.

I still would never in a month of Sundays play a team sport or anything which involves a ball and a stick.

It doesn't help that there's a load of pressure on us to look thin, but also to be in nice clothes, wearing tidy makeup, and not sweating or red-faced. The emphasis is always on how you look rather than how you feel, which I think encourages women to slim down by undereating rather than by exercising and getting strong and healthy.

School gym was shite though. I hated it, and instituted a passive resistance campaign after a while where I'd just sit down on the gym floor. I argued that as I cycled 3 miles to the stables several times a week and then rode/mucked out/was generally outdoors there for a few hours before cycling back, I was getting enough exercise that way. eventually they gave in and let me have a study period instead of gym.

I still detest team sports but am decently fit as I run and do yoga several times a week.

TheScarlettPimpernel You're spot on there. It's the same with art and music. How many people say "I can't draw" or "I can't sing"?

A lot of the people who say this actually can, to some degree, but have been told they can't by an adult when they were younger.

Unfortunately, being told that you can't sing/draw doesn't have quite the same obvious physical effect as a lack of exercise, it's the same effect.

And as more becomes known and understood about the benefits of singing in particular on people's mental health, it is shocking.

I don't think it is as simple as 'choosing' not to participate in an activity, more that you don't consider yourself as someone who would or could.

It's exactly the same as the need for positive gender/racial role models. Not all problems can be resolved on an intellectual level.

It is very complex.

PocPoc I feel the same. I just have this really clear memory, and it's the injustice and unkindness that gets me every time . I can remember the feeling of anger right this minute!

FolkGirl - it's so very true, all you say up there ^.

People who are told they are tone deaf and mocked for being unmusical will actually curl up and weep with humiliation as adults if they are forced to sing (if anyone watched the Military Wives Choir thing you'll remember the woman who was like that - it was awful).

It's the same with PE and sport. Except not singing in choirs doesn't make you overweight, unfit, and frankly a despised and rejected member of society

Just catching up with the thread. What the hell was going on with those blue nylon knickers? Was there a Ministry of PE staffed by pervy old men who decided that schoolgirls should wear these things? Really, really wrong.

One thing about my bluff, manly lady PE teacher was that she never made anyone wear them even though they were on the uniform list. She encouraged flourescent shell suits and cycling shorts (early 90's :) )

Art, I swear to God, if we could have worn trackie bums my life would have been so different and I would have played team sports at uni. Not to any standard, but just for fun....

It makes me realise how helpless children actually are. Looking back I think - why didn't I speak to my classmates, and get the support of a form tutor, and make a formal and well thought out request for more decent sports uniform? The headmistress was a really fab woman and I am convinced would have admired us taking a stance, and it would have all changed.

but when you're a child you just accept that things are hideous and that you have no power, so we did nothing! Christ knows when they eventually changed the uniform - I mean, assuming they did!

I hate exercise, always have. School didn't help, but the underlying lazybastarditis was probably the cause.

Add in asthma, astigmatism (CANNOT catch a ball, or play tennis or ANYTHING useful) and a heavy smoking habit from 13, I was categorically not good at games.

Nothing boosts the self esteem of a tiny little goth like being picked last for every sport in every lesson for 5 years. And ridiculed by the teachers.

School sport was dismal. Do you remember the agony of having completely freezing hands welded to a hockey stick by the cold, and then getting hit by Alpha Girl on the knuckles? OWWWWWW. Or the frostbitten thighs, because the fleece clad Valkyries on the sidelines couldn't see why we needed tracksuit bottoms, oh no, tiny skirts will do, it's only snow. GIVE IT SOME WELLY, YOU BUNCH OF JESSIES.

I seem to have discovered an untapped well of resentment.

I agree with folkgirl too.

My theory is that people are turned off exercise because it's taught by people who love it and don't understand why everyone else doesn't and don't want to either.

DH thinks my theory is rubbish but then he did once toy with the idea of being a PE teacher because he could run about and get paid for it