After one of my Fitcamp classes a member asked me the question of how can she help a teenage girl, who is exceeding 200 pounds and whose parents and 11-year-old sister are also very overweight. The girl’s mom reached out to this Fitcamper and mentioned an interest in getting her daughter fitter; however, she is full of excuses when offered help.
Do you ever run into this type of situation? It can be frustrating at best unless you understand a bit about human psychology and what it takes to change behavior.
The example above illustrates people who are hovering between denial that there is a problem and pre-contemplation, which means they are interested in possibly changing behavior. The denial is when they find excuses as to why they can’t exercise or change eating habits or when they dismiss that they even have a problem. For instance, the mother of the teenager says she wants to wait for a while before she gets her obese daughter involved in activity. Obviously, she doesn’t really see a dire need to correct the situation. You might ask, “for what is she waiting?” There might be some kind of fear holding her back from changing. Perhaps she doesn’t feel as though her husband will support the big change to being active. He himself is quite unfit and is perhaps in denial himself. Perhaps the mother herself is just plain uneducated about how excess body fat wreaks havoc on the body.
So how do you get these kinds of people to listen to you? Very simply, you cannot make them do anything because their motivation has to come from within. Just think of the last time your spouse tried to get you to change a behavior (e.g. put toilet seat down or reduce credit card use). What you can offer is gentle education. Find an opportunity to bring up the topic, diplomatically, of course, and say that you have found an article or blog post or passage in a book that reminded you of the previous conversation you had together. Then proceed to offer the information to that individual.
Another way to encourage change is to invite your colleague to presentations that discuss fitness topics. This can make a world of change for someone considering behavior change especially when the presenter is passionate and offers useful information. Hearing the same information from a professional’s mouth will just layer the learning effect.
Your role as a support person will serve to eventually inspire your friend and ultimately
show your care and concern for his or her well-being. People can’t easily change behaviors overnight. Nevertheless, having supportive friends or family and access to education will eventually serve to spark a desire to change. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him exercise!
Liz Donnelly is a proud member of National Association of Professional Women, International Youth Fitness Association, Lakewood Early Childhood PTA and Junior Women’s Club of Lakewood and mother of three. She is the Owner, Fitness Trainer and IYCA-certified Youth Fitness Specialist for Training by Liz, LLC. She also runs a blog on family fitness at www.FamilyFitnessGuru.com. To comment or to request speaking engagements send an email to liz@trainingbyliz.com.
