I'm focused with physical fitness right now. As a father of two kids, I want to be fit enough to play with them and live long enough to see them become independent adults. Further, COVID-19 has shown to attack people not in ideal shape. However, I do wonder whether being obsessed about fitness is healthy. Could the fittest people actually have the lowest self-esteem?
Just yesterday I thought, “What's the point of being thin if I don't have four pack abs?” And then I started thinking what kind of person thinks about these types of questions? Unless you are a swim model, it’s pretty unproductive and pointless if you ask me.
I've come to the conclusion that those with the highest self-esteem may be some of the least fit and most indebted people on Earth. These folks essentially doing give a damn about what anybody else thinks!
Meanwhile, the fittest people who are constantly thinking about their looks, and who are always at the gym exercising and pumping iron may have the lowest self-esteem. They are constantly checking themselves in the mirror to admire their physiques, even though they already know they look fine.
Kind of ironic right? But of course, we all know that being fit and looking good tends to boost self-confidence as well. It's just fun to look at the other side of the story.
Be Who You Want To Be – A Discussion On The Fittest People
Everything is pretty logical long term. Nobody gains weight and keeps the weight on forever unless they want to. The pleasure of eating really tasty food and not having to work out outweighs any annoyance that gaining weight produces.
If you were truly bothered by your weight gain, you'd logically start eating less. You'd also think about the starvation of others and start working out.
When you have high self-esteem, you don't give a damn what other people think about you. You live your life with pride and purpose and don't care if you're tipping the scales because you're comfortable with who you are.
The same thing with getting in debt too. You don't listen to pundits and people who like to shame folks into spending responsibility. You utilize debt with freedom, enjoying a great life you cannot technically afford because you don't care.
Look at multi-millionaire Dr. Phil. He's overweight, yet he wrote a bestselling weight loss book! That takes great self-esteem and great courage to be able to produce a book teaching others how to lose weight if you yourself are out of shape.
He doesn't care and makes millions because of it. Look at Oprah. She's not in great shape, but she is a billionaire because she has great confidence in her message. She helps others and makes people happy.
Perhaps Fit People May Be Mentally Struggling
If you go to the gym, you'll see some enormously buff guys and extremely toned women working their tails off. They are already at their peak level of fitness. Running another 1 mile isn't going to get them anywhere!
You will notice the guy checking out his abs and biceps in the mirror. Sneaking a peak at himself. The woman will check out her butt, in her $100 Lululemon outfit and admire herself. She'll prance around the gym, making sure other guys notice her.
Some of the fittest people are weak and insecure! You can see it everywhere. The vertically challenged guy gets huge. The insecure woman eats so little so she can get into a size zero and feel better about herself.
I've got some insecurities because I've had thoughts about my fitness and weight since I was 8 years old.
I remember sucking in my gut when I was 9 during swim class because I didn't want the girl I liked to think I was fat! 9 years old! Jee whiz. What's up with the fittest people nowadays posting so many selfies online?
It's so much better to be rich and not famous.
Out Of Shape People May Be Mentally Strongest
The next time you see a really out of shape person who is snowed under a mountain of debt, congratulate them for their courage! Sit down with them and try and figure out how they developed such great self-esteem. This way we can help the fittest people get healthier too!
Chances are, they will simply tell you that they've stopped caring about what other people think. Our own confidence is one of our greatest tools for achieving success. Make sure you have some, and don't ever let it go!
In conclusion, I don't believe the fittest people have the lowest self-esteem. On the contrary, when you're fit, you feel great and self-esteem grows. Just be careful about obsessing too much over the way you look. Because at the end of the day, it's who you are on the inside that counts the most.
Related post: The Unhealthy Desire For Prestige Is Ruining Your Life
The Fittest People Take Care Of Their Wealth
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I had to check my eyes twice to confirm it was indeed a Financial Samurai article.
Strange undertone of heavy biases indeed. I think people always respect and take you seriously if you look and feel like you take good care of yourself. Period.
I’ve been on both sides. Being a father of two young kids, I didn’t have time to take care of myself. I grew pretty overweight and enjoyed binging and drinking regularly. I didn’t think much about my body image at all. However my self esteem was pretty meh.
Now that my kids grew up a little bit and getting a routine figured out, and after having gone through some deep introspection and reprioritization, I spent my last year being extremely active (snowboarding, endurance road biking, HIIT, surfing, paddle boarding, scuba etc… yay COVID lockdown). I love this stuff and I ended up being active 5-6 days a week. What I didn’t realize is the sweet benefit of losing the beer belly and getting ripped with 6 pack abs. I’ll be honest here I didn’t start off with getting ripped as the “end goal”. But who in their right mind would pass on being ripped? Also won’t you be motivated to “look good”?? I personally used to feel at times (not always) sort of invisible when I walk around. Like no one cared – I mean nothing wrong with that. Everybody is minding their business and all. But now I feel more “noticed” and that’s kinda fun. I’ve had other friends confirm this in their own journeys as well. I started feeling a buzz by the attention I get every time I’m at the beach or when people start being slightly nicer to me, smile at me, sometime overtly complement me. I love being appreciated. Gives me a sweet high. But it’s temporary and still doesn’t compare to the high from a good bike ride or catching a barrel surf. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If anything my self esteem has sky rocketed at the age of 37 like never before.
Hi Raj,
I wrote this post a long time ago when I was annoyed about my weight gain. I tried to look at the flip side of the equation.
If we are happy with how we look, should we really spend a lot of time working out when we have children to play with and friends to hang out with? I have so little time nowadays with two little ones and my writing schedule.
But I think it’s fun to combine exercise with family members. Good stuff getting fit again!
How did you stumble upon this post?
Sam
Great article! Lots of very biased and narrow minded coments – proving your point. As an avid gym hitter for more than 10 years i can confirm everything you said here. Extreme pursuit for body aesthetics is just side effect of materialistic society that pushes its own false beauty and body ideal. So lots of people start to threat theirs bodies as an product, from my perspective it usually goes with plastic surgery, branded outfit and sport cars all there to compensate some serious insecurities, or as my friend likes to say you start to conusme on yourself. This specially intresting phenomenon in Balkans, which is statistically very poor area, so i dont want to generalize. Riped boody with only pourpose to be riped is wasted body. Our muscles are here for reason, use them for it, same like your brain.
This is one of the most delusional articles I’ve ever read lmao. It is a known scientific and psychological fact that physically fittest people have generally higher self-esteem (especially pro athletes), and lower rates of anxiety, depression and suicide than people who are obese, anorexic or generally out of shape:
Seriously, your entire article comes across as you trying to cope with being unfit or ugly, and projecting your own self-hate on others who are more in shape and attractive. People who honestly don’t care about their appearance and status also don’t care about themselves in general, which is the basis of low self-esteem. Why would anyone who has a high opinion about themselves let themselves be ugly, out of shape, poor, unloved, etc? It makes no sense.
Self-esteem isn’t about whether or not you care about what others think (which is actually irrelevant to self-esteem), and it’s not about contentment either (which is often coming from defeatism) it about how you feel about yourself in general. Its not okay to be obese or anorexic, its not okay to ugly, its not okay to be poor, and its not okay to be a loser. There’s no “courage” in any if that. No one with high self-esteem would accept or be content with any low quality of themselves
“It is a known scientific and psychological fact that physically fittest people have generally higher self-esteem (especially pro athletes), and lower rates of anxiety, depression and suicide than people who are obese, anorexic or generally out of shape”
Source? That is a very huge claim.
You are full of shit Kn83
The ONLY thing you can tell about a person by looking at them, is your OWN biases for people who looks like them.
Actually its not that those out of shape people stop caring about what others think, they stopped caring about themselves which is 100 times worse than a fit person.
Exactly
I usually like financial samurai articles, but this one ticks me off. The undertone of this article is one that ridicules those who are fit. You have people who are fit and then you have those that are fit and vain. However, everyone checks themselves out every now and then. In any case, becoming fit is not easy nor simple. It is meticulous, time consuming, depleting, and hard. If becoming fit wasn’t difficult, then everyone would be fit and the USA would not a 50% obesity issue.
ahahah this article is so funny and honestly the writer sounds pretty darn insecure and jealous.
I’ve met all kinds of insecure people and they were in all shapes and sizes. Fat…fit…average. This article is ridiculous.
Nonsense. Being obsessed with fitness is a sign of insecurity, that I agree with. However, taking care of ones body is the greatest investment an individual can make. When you are fitter, healthier, and stronger, you tend to be more productive than those who are not. You have the mental alertness and focus on a younger person even as you grow older while your peer become burdened by their cumbersome over-weight bodies.
People also respect you more. You embody strength with your presence and they come to you for leadership and advice. The biggest lion in the pack is ” always” the leader of the pack. Same applies for all animals, humans included.
Not all gym, fit people are narcissistic and obsessed with their appearances. I rarely check my abs in public, never brag, or offer advice to random people unless requested. I just want to be fit and stronger, especially as I get older and my body deteriorates.
Facts
No one here has a right to speculate how anyone feels inside , but everyone can input how they feel about themselves and the kind of shape their in and let the facts speak for themselves :)
I personally can say I’ve always been consumed with my looks and a lot of people would be happy to look like me and have a body like me (so my husband says:/ ) I can’t really see it though. I am happy with myself but I’m not perfect . Sometimes I have bad days and I’m not happy with myself . When I try to be perfect like some of these fitness models , I’m miserable . The more I try , the more I care the less happy I am with myself . I think the more I try to look good the less happy I am inside. I would like to accept myself for being perfectly imperfect , that is happiness to me and not care what others think . I work on it every day . I have to cause I’m getting older and beauty fades ! You gotta love yourself for more than your appearance and you got to be able to offer more to the world than just your looks
Actually, accepting and loving yourself as you are is one of the hardest things to do.
Now it all makes sense. Now I understand why there is so much vilification of people who are skinny, thin and fat. They need to bring them down in order to feel better with themselves.
I suppose this also applies to the obsession with the alpa male rhetoric. I guess those men feel they are not masculine enough so they have to call other men beta and other insults in an attempt to emasculate them so that thry can rise above them.
And I could go further and also speculate that the trmeendous homophbia I observe in bodybuilding mey also be a sing of sexual insecurity hence the need to appear aggressively heterosexual.
Interesting but at the same time it kind of makes me very disappointed in bodybuilding and the fitness world in general that tyey haven’t condemned these undesirable practices.
Your post is nonsense.
This is one of the most delusional articles I’ve ever read lmao. It is a known scientific and psychological fact that physically fittest people have generally higher self-esteem (especially pro athletes), and lower rates of anxiety, depression and suicide than people who are obese, anorexic or generally out of shape:
And its also a fact that people who are more masculine tend to have higher self-esteem on average (because confidence and self-esteem come from androgens).
Seriously, your post comes across as you trying to cope with being unfit or ugly, and projecting your own self-hate on others who are more in shape and attractive. People who honestly don’t care about their appearance and status also don’t care about themselves in general, which is the basis of low self-esteem. Why would anyone who has a high opinion about themselves let themselves be ugly, out of shape, poor, unloved, etc? It makes no sense.
Self-esteem isn’t about whether or not you care about what others think (which is actually irrelevant to self-esteem), and it’s not about contentment either (which is often coming from defeatism) it about how you feel about yourself in general. Its not okay to be obese or anorexic, its not okay to ugly, its not okay to be poor, and its not okay to be a loser (that’s why people with those traits get vilified). No one with high self-esteem would accept or be content with any low quality of themselves, only those with no self-respect would.
Having been around gyms for 32 yrs I can say that bodybuilding does attract some very troubled insecure people. However not everyone that has a great healthy body fits into that mold. Many of us have found that working out is a great way to deal with the stresses and storms of life.
You make the assumption that everyone is in the gym trying to impress you. Fact is a lot of us could give a rats ass about the people looking at us . we are too busy training and getting high on natures natural painkiller ( endorphins).
People with low self esteem do not care about their health. They load their bodies full of junk food that destroys their health. You only get one body and you need to take care of it. I know this was an older post but man what a warped view of life the author has.
I’m not entirely convinced that being fitter leads to low self-esteem and insecurity or how this relates to finance but it is still very interesting to explore.
“If you go to the gym, you’ll see some enormously buff guys and extremely toned women working their tails off. They are already at their peak level of fitness. Running another 1 mile isn’t going to get them anywhere.”
Appearing fit does not equal actual fitness or health. My partner who is a physician sees this every day from thin, sedentary patients with metabolic syndrome (i.e. type II diabetes, heart disease) because they refuse to exercise regularly. The non-medical term would probably be “skinny fat.”
Many of the fittest gym goers are simply training for their sport. For those of us who are professional/competitive athletes, the six pack abs and toned body you describe are often side effects rather than the end goal. The implication above is that appearing physically fit means that the person has already maximized their potential. On the contrary, fitness is a long-term skill that needs to be consistently improved upon and maintained (just like financial discipline). For instance, a recreational athlete might not care about finishing a run 5 secs faster than the last but to a runner or rower that is the difference between first and last place.
“Meanwhile, those who constantly think about their looks, and who are always at the gym exercising and pumping iron have the lowest self-esteem. They are constantly checking themselves in the mirror to admire their physiques, even though they already know they look fine.”
Vanity isn’t necessarily specific to gym goers. Everyone has mirrors in their house, right? Who doesn’t love seeing how great they look in a nice outfit in the privacy of their bedrooms? Is admiring the changes in your own fit body during a workout really all that different? As an aside, the primary reason mirrors exist in the gym is for people to check their form and avoid injury.
Perhaps it’s the folks that take shortcuts to fitness like weight loss drugs, body enhancement implants that are more likely to struggle with body image issues. I wouldn’t know, but assuming “fit people are weak” might not be the right type of encouragement for them.
I think you are right. The strongest people are those who can accept tjhemselves for who they are. It is good to do some exercise for health reasons, but people such as fitness models and bodybuilders are never satisfy with their looks, they are always striving for more muscle and more definition, they are constantly running away from the fear of being either thin or overweight.
It is that fear that drives them to the obsession with muscualrity.
They tend to vilify thin and overweight people. You can clearly see this when watching those Youtube videos of guys showing their transformation from skinny to muscular; skinny is horrible and bad, and muscular is good and glorious.
They send a wrong message in so many ways with their obsession with muscularity.
This is complete nonsense.
Self-Acceptance is NOT self-esteem. And no, its a scientific fact that fitness models, pro athletes and bodybuilders have highet self-esteem (and lower rates of suicide and depression) than people who are overweight or super skinny. And what actually drives these people in being fit and muscular (besides genetics) is their naturally higher testosterone levels, so they tend to naturally more physically active and extroverted people seeking to stimulate themselves productively.
People who dont care about their appearance tend to not care about themselves. No one with high self-esteem would accept any low quality about themselves. They would either seek to improve or focus on what strengths they have to compensate.
People who are ugly or in bad shape know subconsciously that its not okay to be what they are, that’s why they get vilified because there’s no benefit in being what they are.
You are literally commenting on everyone’s post, which naturally contrasts yours. What is nonsense is your aggressive and angry tone about the topic, which pinpoints your insecurities about beauty ideals. It also show you cannot intelligently agree to disagree with other people’s views.
If you are trying to convince people that you are happy with yourself, then you have failed miserably here, in the least. The people you presume are ugly, lazy, etc. are a mirror of what you feel about yourself…deep, deep down inside of your subconscious mind.
Self acceptance means you love yourself as you are regardless of what others think of you that’s true love and self esteem gym people train for others people’s validation but you cover it up with I’m working my butt off in the gym trying to get fit..
Exactly and this is the truth the gym rats, crossfit people won’t admit then they try and belittle you if you don’t show up to the gym I joined cross fit for 2 days I got sore as hell never went back and got shunned for it.. I’ll never do that again..
Interesting article. Read about self-respect. It is far more different and better than self-esteem.
I am 43. After a recent split with my partner of 13 years i am now subjected to living cheaply so i can pay my ex partner enough money to look after our 3 yr old daughter. I have been a drummer for 20 years which in itself kept me in good shape but I have abused my body of much alcohol and junk food and look unwell in body and mind. Now I am on the internet looking at various health fitness sites in order to find how to ‘lose weight’, gain my ‘abs’, etc etc etc. This i feel has led me to believe i am insecure in myself, thinking if i look better i will regain my self confidence, health and well being. And now I’m asking myself… will attempting to be a gym rat fulfil these things? Its a tough call. Wont do me any harm, but theres more to life picking up something heavy… and putting it back down again.
Hi Phil – The best fitness workout is getting separating for a long time partner! Use it as motivation to look the best and rock it!
Oh, sorry by the way. I thought it was a woman who wrote this. Apparently it is a male. This does not change anything I said though.
This is such a horribly written article. You have a really ignorant point of view and you should not generalize. Negativity resonates and so when we hear of insecure skinny woman who starve themselves we pay all of our attention to it, but do we ever pay any attention to the people who chose a healthy lifestyle after getting a heart attack or those who just have a genuine passion for being healthy. My friends and I are all fit. We do not hang out with each other because of our level fitness, but we enjoy hanging out with each other because we all share the same genuine love for exercise and health. Like I said, negativity resonates and so when you are at the gym you pay attention to the douchebags flexing in front of the mirror or the beautiful woman wearing no clothing (who you possibly envy deep down inside) rather than on your own exercise or the motivated people who wear loose clothing or those who just do not care about what everyone else is doing. I am very offended by your article, but it is fine because I am sure the one with the least self esteem is you.
I’ve found that the more offended people are by this article, the lower the self-esteem they have. Learn to shrug things off and look at both sides of the coin. It’s helpful in the long run.
You didn’t debunk anything he said.
Everyone cares about others to some extent. Its what makes us human beings. If you don’t focus on what you want and actually dive into it full force you will lower your self esteem. Because you are nothing. Oprah and Dr Phil love money. Its not a bad thing. Its not that theydont care about what people think. Its quite the opposite. She gives the audience things for free to give herself good public relations and write off some taxes. Killing two birds with one stone? Sounds like a great strategy. Do what you believe is best for you regardless of other peoples opinions.
This is pretty stupid, honestly.
I don’t think the author has any idea what he’s talking about. People lift for a lot of reasons. Some want to be healthy, some want to be physically capable in a time of need, some want to look good, some want to feel good, some want to be strong, and I just want to be better at sports. You can’t blame some people for checking themselves out because it’s a remarkable thing to watch your body grow and realize that you control your body, not the other way around.
It’s usually the act of an insecure person to judge a group he doesn’t understand.
Devvy, I basically echo all of your thoughts. Well said.
For other people I doubt it’s for yourself yoi do 80% of what you do to attract others validation and 20% drives the 80%
You have a skewed and bias view of what fitness is. If you wish to be ignorant about health and fitness and the reasons people choose to peruse it that is your problem, just don’t make stupid and illogical conclusions while trying to sway the opinions of others.
A fit man is happier than he would be if he wasn’t fit, I will leave it at that.
I currently live in Wisconsin and I am always amazed at the amount of very overweight people that I see at the gym. I would never have that level of confidence to walk into a gym so overweight.
I do have a theory about people “check out” themselves in the mirror. I lift at the gym. I am usually the only woman surrounded by a sea of men. When you have breaks in between your sets…you have to look at something, thus you focus on yourself…you don’t want it to look like you are checking out everyone else. Also, sometimes you are staring at yourself to ensure your form is correct.
I’m not sure if overweight people have high self esteem or if they’re just lazy and undisciplined. It’s easier to embrace defeat than it is to embark on change that requires grit, sacrifice and hard work. I feel like I look pretty damn good. But like most areas of my life, I want to do better. However, it is important to define what’s enough. Once you achieve a level of “enough” it’s permissible to switch to maintenance mode. Until then, you work your butt off.
Is this post supposed to be scarcatic? If not, this post makes no sense to me (please don’t yell at me). Elite athletes are fit, so they have low self-esteem?
If you are just argued gym rats work out just to look good… you *might* have an argued point. but other then that I don’t really see any correlation/causation with level of fitness and level of self-esteem.
lol i think Sam posted this to start world war three, or cyber war one. i am in disbelief after reading it
Dr. Phil wrote a weigh loss book? Wow I didn’t know that. I bet he could write a book on growing hair and it’d make some money too.
You make a good point that I never thought about. I think the people with the lowest self esteem are the extreme bodybuilders. The ones with the unnatural 3% body fat who eat crazy things and ingest a ton of pills to get their bodies looking like that. Looking like that is not normal at all. I hate to say it but the women who are ripped like that are not attractive at all. Plus then they add all the fake tanner. Yuck.
I would say a person losing weight would gain self-estem as they continually lose weight. However it has to be to a healthy weight. Going overboard gets into that low self-esteem area you talk about.
This is so very un-zen of you. The best I can agree with is Chris Parsons comment about extremes. Extreme fitness and extreme obesity are often signs of insecurity. But instead of judging, how about some empathy? Insecure people need help, not judgement. Also, extremely fit people in the Olympics don’t exactly strike me as insecure, just as there are extremely obese people who have no control over the problem for whatever health reason.
Didn’t know I was supposed to be zen. You’re missing the point of the post. I’m talking about my own insecurity.
I suppose the Buddha threw me off.
The Happy Buddha is there to show that as the symbol of the happiest person who ever existed, he is out of shape and doesn’t care. I think you’ve really missed the point of this article completely… perhaps I need to change my writing style.
How are you showing empathy, as you write in your comment?