A morbidly obese influencer claims she’s healthy and fit because she can walk all day, three days in a row, at festivals.
But “festival walking” should not be used to gauge fitness or health.
This influencer, who appears to be at least 100 pounds overweight and overtly promotes obesity, lives in a Canadian region where there are recurring DM festivals.
These electronic dance events feature DJs, massive light shows and artistic attractions: plenty of walking and being on one’s feet, but…
One day she responded to a snarky comment on her TikTok account: “At least you’re walking around.”
Her angry clapback consists of first calling the poster fatphobic for assuming “just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I have trouble walking.”
She then says she’s attended seven, three-day festivals, and a “handful” of two-day festivals, “where you walk around and stand on your feet for 12 hours, and I have no trouble doing that.” She then gives the finger — after saying “F^ck off.”
Throughout this, her face looks like she’s about to blow a gasket over this stranger’s brief comment.
There’s several things wrong with this 30-year-old influencer’s response.
#1 Festival Walking Is Typically Leisurely Paced
Not only is “walking around all day” at a festival or amusement park almost always done at a leisurely pace, it’s also peppered with many periods of standing around.
We certainly can’t believe for a moment that this influencer is briskly walking for long nonstop periods over a 12-hour time frame.
This is not how people move at festivals!
Being on your feet all day at a venue that’s on flat ground where you’re going to be making many pauses to stand around does not require a respectable degree of fitness.
It requires only patience and enthusiasm over the event. It’s about pacing your body to remain comfortable.
And this brings me to the next flaw in the influencer’s clapback.
#2 Fat for So Long She Doesn’t Recognize Discomfort
I’ve read many YouTube comments from formerly morbidly obese individuals who say that when they were at that weight, they thought they were doing just fine; thought they felt great.
But only when they began dropping a lot of weight did they realize just how awful they had actually felt moving about all day with a hundred, even 50, extra pounds on their body.
Because once they lost a good deal of weight, they realized just how much better their knees and back felt, how much faster and perkier they could move without effort, how much easier it was to do things that they never thought could feel any easier when they were 250 pounds.
It’s not impossible for a very heavy person to become desensitized to the discomfort of moving around 275 pounds every day.
This desensitization would most likely occur if the weight gain was gradual over time.
They literally forget how much better they felt when their body was lighter.
If they’ve always been overweight, especially clinically obese in childhood, then they wouldn’t know what the difference feels like – moving around in a slim body vs. a fat body. They’d have no reference.
Of course, there are people the same size as this influencer who flat-out realize how uncomfortable it is to use staircases, do housework or yardwork, and walk around all day at Disneyland.
Nevertheless, some influencers are in such denial over the health dangers of obesity that maybe they’ve convinced themselves that an aching back after walking around at a festival for two hours is completely normal, or that feeling winded after briskly walking 50 yards is – perfectly normal.
#3 You Can Do Better than That
When I read the influencer’s rebuttal, I thought, “That’s all you can come up with to convince this poster that you’re fit?”
If this woman were truly fit, wouldn’t she instead post a video of herself doing 12 nonstop burpees followed by a dozen jump squats?
Supporters might argue that she doesn’t owe this proof to anyone.
However, she opened the floodgates by responding to the poster in the first place.
So if she’s going to post a rebuttal, why not be savvy and convincing and post a video of repeated hill dashes – up and down, up and down – or running hard down a street?
The fact that all she could come up with was a video of herself appearing to be seated while announcing she could stay on her feet all day at festivals … really comes up short as far as demonstrating respectable fitness to a skeptic.
Who briskly walks nonstop at festivals for extended periods? You’d miss a lot if you did this!
You want to see everything that’s there, visit various stations, admire the art, sway to the music, enjoy the food, mingle with people – this does not require an aerobic workout, let alone impressive feats of ambulation.
It’s like the day my brother kept saying how he couldn’t believe our aunt, in her 80s, made it all the way up the Cabrini Shrine steps.
Our aunt kept replying, “I went very slowly. I’d pause; I’d take breaks. I took my sweet time.”
Completing steps doesn’t equate to fitness. I told my brother that an uncle, who was obese, missing half of one leg from type 2 diabetes and a cigar smoker, could also get up all 373 steps – if he moved slowly enough and gave himself enough time.
#4 She’s Only 30
Though you just read about how a morbidly obese person can become desensitized to body discomfort and fatigue from prolonged walking and standing, this influencer’s age strongly factors into all of this.
From a medical standpoint, 30 is young. A body this young can still fight back at the duo of obesity and gravity. It can push through, creating the illusion that “I have no trouble doing that.”
Let’s see if she’ll be saying the same thing when she’s 40. I’ve always said, “Youth is a wonderful protector.”
When she’s 40, walking and standing around all day at these DM festivals isn’t going to be as doable.
She’ll likely blame this on being 40, even though if you regularly do aerobic exercise (fitness class, cardio machine, hiking, jogging, hill walking, stepping), walking and standing around for 12 hours will be a breeze even for a 50-year-old.
And let’s be real: There’s a lot of sitting time sprinkled throughout at festivals.
If she continues to carry around 100+ pounds of extra weight, her body will lose steam over the ensuing years, and attending these festivals for 12 hours will feel like misery — though again, she’ll blame it on “I’m getting older; what do you expect?”
Walking around at festivals is not a feat of fitness.
If you’ve been telling yourself you’re fit just because you can “walk around from morning till nighttime” at some big event, you’ll want to rethink this mindset.
Festivals, amusement parks and other such venues involve go-and-stop participation, and it’s also not believable that the influencer didn’t take some good time out of those 12 hour days to have a seat. This just isn’t believable – not because she’s morbidly obese, but because who’s literally on their feet for 12 hours at a festival?
Even the most hyper, energetic kids will find themselves sitting after a while, even sprawling on the grass.
Plus, this influencer never mentions dancing when at the festivals. Vigorous dancing is aerobic exercise — and all she mentions is walking and standing.
Walking around all day – at a very leisurely pace (think: why would anyone hurry around at a festival if they’re going to be there all day?) doesn’t mean you’d do well in a cardio fitness class, jogging a mile, hiking hills or running 7 mph on a treadmill for five minutes. It’s not a measure of fitness.
