Sit Down, Super Girl

Someone I know has been sick. She is young and quite overweight. She's been in the hospital with very serious weight related health issues. Her husband has also had serious health issues as a result of being obese. Unfortunately, the children aren't far behind. Even with these potentially life threatening illnesses, neither one of them seem to have any motivation at all to make a lifestyle change.

I was getting an update on this woman's condition yesterday when an interesting conversation arose. K, the woman who was giving me the update is quite caught up in the woman's case; maybe a little too much. After some discussion K said "I have to get some of my own weight off before the same thing happens to me". I agreed that most Americans need to do the same. K then started telling me that she hadn't been able to even think about a "diet" for the last couple of years because her daughter has had so much going on in her life. She then started telling me how worried she was about her husband. He was getting overweight and never gets any exercise. He barely even gets up out of the chair. She said she was quite concerned about him too.

My head started spinning. I wanted so much to jump in and start an hour long lecture on codependence. Happily, I resisted pulling out my rescue super powers. Instead, in the most polite and healthy way I was capable of, I mentioned to K that while she is a very caring and giving person, she may want to stop focusing so much on the friend's illness, the daughter's issues, and her husband's lack of motivation and start focusing on herself. I reminded her that nothing she could do would fix any of these people because they had no desire to be fixed. I told her that the only person mentioned that she actually could fix is herself.

I hope I said the right thing, and I hope some of it sunk in.