Ew. Seriously? So Gross!

As promised, a much needed update about our Girls on Track lesson about eating disorders.  As luck would have it, our unpredictable Buffalo weather called for snow.  And it snowed that last week of April - and on a practice day.  And then freezing rain.  And even a little hail.  Great, right?

I took 4 hours leave from work to re-plan the lesson.  I didn’t want the girls to run outside, slip and fall. Mostly, I didn’t want parents complaining. By the time I got to the middle school, lugging a dry erase board to the front of the school while the hard freezing rain hit my skin was the challenge of the day.  School wasn’t out yet, so I wasn’t allowed inside.  Again, wonderful.   

If you watch TV, you will recognize the subject of this post from the infamous Geico commercial.  A gentleman wants to shed a few pounds, but doesn’t want to pay for a personal trainer, gym membership, or a legitimate diet plan. So decides to hire three local middle school girls and instead pay them to follow him around to bully him every time he wants to eat something unhealthy – be it fast food or the Belgian waffle he’s about to dig into at a little diner.

As luck would have it, someone wrote a great article online about this commercial and how it is wrong on so many different levels.  It discusses bullying and harassing and the stigma tied with middle school girls and unhealthy dieting habits.  The worst part is that Geico recognizes this “mean girl” stigma and condones it by making it into a commercial that we all laugh at.  Admittedly, I thought this commercial was funny too!  But when you really think about it, is it a good thing that Geico is condoning middle school “mean girl” bullying about anyone being fat?  Of course not!  So, I printed the article out and we discussed the commercial and why it was wrong.  Now, these girls are sharp and said things like, “I’d charge more than a gym membership to follow a guy around!”  But they got the drift.

I also printed out some general information about anorexia and bulimia from a Government website and distributed it to the girls.  We didn’t go over it as I went with the book’s definition, but I thought it was important for girls this age to bring something home with them so they’d remember the lesson.

One girl got teary-eyed as she told a story about a friend of hers prior to middle school who had anorexia.  Her friend’s mom was anorexic, and being an anorexic mom, she fed her daughter very little. The tears were from knowing this fact, but not knowing enough to tell an adult.  As a result of malnourishment, the little girl passed away.  Everyone was silent and you know, what can you say?  “You were little.  You didn’t know.  It’s not your fault”   

It was a long, emotional lesson for the girls, and they were a bit antsy since they were in school all day, but we sat and talked.  The girls asked questions that were tough to answer.  The worst was, “How do you make yourself throw up?”  I couldn’t handle that, and just looked at Jeri, who said… “Well, it’s really hard to unless you just eat too much.  You really have to just eat so much that your stomach can’t handle it.”

We had about 20 minutes left and the girls got more and more antsy, begging me to run.  “Girls, it’s cold out.”  15 minutes left.  We hadn’t even finished the lesson, let alone warm up or stretch. 

I gave in.  Some of the girls ran one lap, decided it was too cold and went inside, and others hovered with me under the umbrella.  Some girls ran two.  Coach Jeri made the call that this wasn’t a good idea, and we needed to get inside. Just enough time to have the girls grab their stuff and meet their rides.

The lesson went well, but as for the weather: “Ew. Seriously?”

Of course, yesterday 70s and humid!  Half the team forgot their water bottles.  Go figure.