14 DAY TRIAL // There’s tough love and then there’s this: Army drill sergeant John Burke, who works as a fitness motivator and has been posting countless videos on Facebook and YouTube, has become the latest viral star after a video he posted for fat people has gotten almost 9 million hits in total.
The video is available on John Burke’s Facebook but also on a separate page. We can’t embed it here because *it contains graphic and profane language that might offend, but it’s available at the link in this paragraph.
Tough love: I won’t accept you if you’re fat, get to work to lose weight
In the video, which is shot at the gym, probably after a workout, a sweaty and clearly angry Burke rants against those who claim the world should accept them for being overweight, because we’re all different.
He for one will not hear of body diversity: if you’re fat and you don’t have some medical condition that might explain the excess weight, you’re just lazy. You might not know it, but you’re heading to even worse times, as your health will take a turn for the worse as you grow older because you refuse to do something about it now.
Even worse than seeing overweight adults out and about is seeing their kids, who are just as fat as their parents. Those who are in this situation should think of their children if they can’t be motivated into losing weight for their own good.
“To the overweight people: No, I’m not going to accept you for who you are, with that [expletive] excuse of ‘you should love me because I’m beautiful.’ Your personality might be beautiful, but your body is not. It is not OK to be overweight,” Burke yells.
Children of overweight people learn to eat unhealthy from a very young age and end up being overweight themselves. Then, when they start school, they will be bullied and have their self-esteem ruined and maybe even their life - and all of it because their parents couldn’t get off their lazy butts to start working out and eating healthier foods.
He is a motivator, and motivate he will
To Burke, the solution to America’s obesity problem is launching new trends on social media that encourage embracing overweight figures (“curves,” as they’re called) but finding the motivation to make a change.
In his view, this can only come from understanding the risks one is exposed to if one is overweight or obese, from personal health issues to the impact on the quality of life of the children.
As he puts it for BuzzFeed, the world needs an “[expletive]-hole” to give it a good kick and wake it to reality, and he’s ok with being it. He doesn’t care if people will think him the worst person alive when he sets out to deliver said kick.