Maria Kang | Extreme Mom

I am angry. She did it again. Maria Kang that is, the fitness guru mom who posed hovering over her three young sons clad in short shorts and a sports bra, and captioned the photo WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?

While the photo was most likely intended for her fitness conscious audience, it was posted publicly on her Facebook page and went over with the grace of an elephant in lead pointe shoes.

All hell broke lose in the media.

I personally thought it was a brassy move on her part and wrote kind of a spoof post about it here.

I got a lot of hate mail and responded here.

Now that you’re caught up, she’s back in the news, this time she was temporarily banned from Facebook for hate content.

Apparently, Mrs. Kang wasn’t supportive, open minded or caring in the statements she made in response to an article in the Daily Mail featuring proud plus-sized women in lingerie.

Maria Kang wrote “The popular and unrelenting support received to those who are borderline obese (not just 30-40lbs overweight) frustrates me as a fitness advocate who intimately understands how poor health negatively effects a family, a community and a nation,” Kang said.

“While I think it’s important to love and accept your body, I was a little peeved because I think that we’re normalizing obesity in our society,” Kang said.

Dear Maria Kang,

You are an insensitive cold-hearted bitch. I’m shocked that you have the audacity to make such a profoundly negative statement. It leads me to believe that you are in fact so narrow minded that you actually BELIEVE women choose to be obese, because they’re simply too lazy to exercise and eat right.

Do you seriously think that?

Perhaps your tunnel vision goes no further than the small demographic of healthy fit women you interact with at the gym.

Since I’ve been an RN for over 20 years, let me enlighten YOU as to what I’ve seen in this vast world of ours that’s a bazillion shades of grey.

Some women happen to have perfectly good EXCUSES, which by the way is a bullshit term, as it implies laziness and blame. I prefer the word circumstances.

You obviously chose the word EXCUSES for it’s shock effect.

The thing is- you perfectly proportioned exercise Barbie doll that happened to win the genetic lottery, the world isn’t perfect. People aren’t perfect. There are a lot of VARIABLES in other women’s lives preventing them from looking like you and that’s OKAY.

How dare you say that that’s NOT okay?

For a host of different reasons many women will never be thin or physically fit.

How dare you shame them?

The following is an excerpt from a post – The World is a Bazillion Shades of Grey Don’t be Judgy where I cite a seemingly endless list of variables realized by many women who happen to have perfectly legitimate excuses.

I speak for the masses of women whose dreams are unachievable due to circumstances beyond their control.

I speak for single moms working two jobs to make ends meet, who barely have time to cook, clean, do laundry and read their kids a bedtime story.

I speak for those trapped in abusive or controlling relationships who don’t have choices.

I speak for those with mental health issues like depression, post traumatic stress disorder and disabling anxiety who expend every last bit of energy simply trying to muster through the day.

I speak for those with medical conditions for which they must take daily medication that causes adverse effects like nausea or extreme fatigue.

I speak for those who’ve been involved in motor vehicle accidents who have difficulty climbing stairs or getting out a chair.

I speak for those with arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other invisible medical conditions that absolutely dictate their level of activity.

I speak for those taking care of children with special needs or elderly parents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week who are physically exhausted.

I speak for those with heart, lung and skeletal problems who are forced to limit their activities.

I speak for those with metabolic and endocrine conditions that cause chronic weight gain and low energy levels.

I speak for those whose addictions have stolen their lives and who continue to wrestle invisible demons.

I speak for the masses of women afflicted by a never ending list of challenging circumstances which causes them to chose meeting their basic needs over any sort of leisure activity including fitness related activities and working out.

I’d also like to toss the don’t-judge-a-book-by-it’s-cover analogy in here, to point out that things aren’t always as they may seem.

Meaning, it is entirely possible for an athlete missing a limb to be in a better overall physical condition to engage in an exercise regime than let’s say a 30-something seemingly healthy woman suffering from depression and fibromyalgia.

Different people, different bodies, different states of health.

We must RESPECT all of these circumstances.

Like Maria Kang, the handicapped athlete has no right to point a judgmental finger at anyone else.

NOBODY has the right to point a judgmental finger in the faces of a society made up of people whose unique situations are a bazillion shades of grey.

Their story is not your story.

You haven’t lived their lives.

You have no right to point or challenge masses of people you know nothing about.

That is all.

Shall we sort through the aftermath caused by yesterday’s spoofy post I wrote called Bite Me Maria Kang?

Excellent. Let’s do it!

The following post was inspired by comments I received defending Maria Kang- the mom who had the audacity to flaunt a photograph of her buff physically fit body in skimpy workout attire kneeling over her three young sons bearing the caption, “What’s your excuse?”

For the most part, the defending statements conveyed a similar message that the comment writer had been motivated by the said photo and anyone who was offended was simply overreacting, overly sensitive (we’re talking about women… no?) jealous and should get off their lazy ass and just exercise.

The comments were absolutely judgmental and I therefore feel compelled to enlighten.

First off, I’m not personally offended by the photo in question. It takes a helluva lot more than THAT to rattle my cage.

I’m completely content with me, and if I had the desire to go hard body I would. This is not a goal of mine at the moment, so leave me out of it.

This post is not about me.

I tend to advocate for the underdog…. It’s a kind of calling that I cannot explain.

I perceived Mrs. Kang’s brassy message as rather bossy, demeaning and narrow minded.

It’s no surprise that her bold tactic offended a lot of women.

My stance is based on my own personal knowledge and wisdom that some women do in fact have sound legitimate excuses.

Scratch the word excuses, as it implies blame and weakness. It’s an unfair word. I prefer the word circumstance: a condition or event that affects a situation.

I speak not for myself, but for the silent masses who do have honest-to-goodness legitimate EXCUSES.

I suppose the veteran nurse in me is speaking.

Different people. Different circumstances. Different economic classes. Different educational backgrounds. Different health statuses. Different mental and coping skill levels. Different family situations. Different genetic coding. Different body types.

Not everybody can push themselves out of a state of mere laziness and look like the Incredible Hulk’s mom.

If you can, I applaud you.

Clap clap clap.

However, please respect the fact that not everyone in the world is just like YOU.

The world is not a fixed environment inhabited by a predictable perfectly cloned population.

Sure, the no EXCUSES mantra may be fitting in a competitive atmosphere like the locker room or gym where there’s a level playing field. However, society as a whole is anything but a level playing field.

From my perspective, I see a planet that’s something like fifty bazillion shades of grey.

In the writing of my post “Bite Me Maria Kang”, I speak for the masses of women whose dreams are unachievable due to circumstances beyond their control.

I speak for single moms working two jobs to make ends meet, who barely have time to cook, clean, do laundry and read their kids a bedtime story.

I speak for those trapped in abusive or controlling relationships who don’t have choices.

I speak for those with mental health issues like depression, post traumatic stress disorder and disabling anxiety who expend every last bit of energy simply trying to muster through the day.

I speak for those with medical conditions for which they must take daily medication that causes adverse effects like nausea or extreme fatigue.

I speak for those who’ve been involved in motor vehicle accidents who have difficulty climbing stairs or getting out a chair.

I speak for those with arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other invisible medical conditions.

I speak for those taking care of children with special needs or elderly parents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I speak for those with heart, lung and skeletal problems who are forced to limit their activities.

I speak for those with metabolic and endocrine conditions that cause weight gain.