overweight personal trainer?

[taylorswift1989]

I recently joined a gym. It's one of a chain and it's great for what I need, but I've noticed that two of the personal trainers who work there are very overweight. All the female staff look fit and healthy, but the male staff look like they are in need of some personal training themselves.

(No one will be able to answer this, but I wonder if the standards are different for men and women. The women look exactly how you would expect fit and strong women to look - a variety of physiques for sure, but clearly they are fit and agile. I wonder if obese women would be employed at this gym, even if they had the qualifications?)

Is it unreasonable to think that personal trainers should look like they have the ability and discipline to achieve the goals that their clients are working towards? I know people come in all shapes and sizes, and a larger person may be very fit and skilled at certain sports, and/or an excellent teacher, so maybe I am being unfair? But we are talking about people who are obese and who do not look fit or healthy. Even if it doesn't affect their skill at training clients, does it make a difference to how much trust you would put in them to be able to help you towards your fitness goals?

YABU - It wouldn't make any difference to me as long as they were qualified and knew their stuff in theory
YANBU - It would make me wonder if they had the discipline or ability that they are trying to teach their clients

A BMI of 29 is not going to kill someone. The practising what they preach comment - yet again - not everyone goes to a PT to lose weight

As my GP says- and I trust her more than any personal trainer- it would kill me eventually.

I agree that not everyone goes to a PT to lose weight. But criticising those of us who do and calling us judgy seems counter productive.

It's not just discipline. It's about the type of training people do and other factors. There are people who have discipline in the sports they do who are overweight, even slightly

My brother has a BMI of 26 and around 17 per cent body fat. He's exceptionally fit. BMI really is not the best measure of how fit and healthy someone is

Sometimes being in shape has nothing to do with discipline. My mum has struggled to keep weight on her entire life. She does walk a lot and has been a gym member in the past but there are people who do a lot more exercise than she does who will be heavier than she is.

You referred to yourself as judgy to be fair

Oh I missed out the quote marks then. I don't think I am particularly, actually.

But a lot of PTs have argued that nobody should judge them by their appearance. I think this is a field where many will. Even if they don't say so.
Anyway, I have said enough.

Having spent a lot of time in gyms, one thing I've learned is to never to judge someone's fitness based on their appearance. You'll see thin toned women leg pressing 50kg and overweight /obese women barbell squatting 100kg. Likewise some of the least fit looking men are the strongest. You can see similar things in cardio based fitness classes too.

There are a couple of female instructors at my local expensive gym who may look overweight. One told me she cannot shed weight from her stomach no matter what she does and she puts it down to taking too many slimming pills when she was a teenager. They are both super fit and very strong. So it's not all about how you look

The doctor and nurse thing is totally different though. They are there to advise you, to pass on official recommendations. Personal trainers are there to SHOW you how to be healthy.

Rubbish. Alcohol is not nearly as bad as sugar. Cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, simple carbs. These are far worse than alcohol when it comes to weight.

Don't most alcoholic drinks have sugar of some kind though.
I think it varies by person which food group makes them fat.

I went to a pilates class a couple of days ago. The replacement teacher was fat, but average for her age. She seemed around 60 and seemed to know what she was doing so I was happy. She was quite covered up so I couldn't tell if she was muscly...

Ha ha. I thought horrible hair was par for the course for hairdressers because they often need to look trendy or fashionable.

I think she means because they'd be muscly, but those ones wouldn't look fat so probably isn't the type of body OP is talking about.

They are there to help people meet specific goals. As long as they can do that - that's all that matters. As I have said elsewhere in the thread - there are people who do specific types of training like strongman who could be medically obese - and very fit.

I've trained with people like that - they were much fitter than I was.

Again, I don’t understand responses like this, it’s like the ones refering to thin people when the op referred to no such thing she said fit and healthy. This response is about age, the op didn’t ask if you wish an older or younger pt. So what relevance has it. And why would an older pt, be in poorer health and fitness.

People generally get bigger as they get older and also suffer more health problems. Personal trainers may suffer these things less than the general population, but they may also follow the normal trend.

Plenty of young people are over weight or obese.

Yes, of course. That goes without saying, but people in general get bigger as they get older.