Can I motivate my parents somehow?

contingencyplan

My mother -

She's been overweight most of her life. After my sister, who is two years younger than myself, was born, overweight became obese. She lost a good portion of the weight once upon a time, but it came back with a vengeance after she quit smoking in 2001-2002. Her knees are totally shot now so she struggles even with walking as a result so there are lots of exercises she can not do. She refuses to bother doing the things she CAN do and while she does eat healthy throughout the week she blows it all on the weekend usually putting away a whole bag of lays potato chips and a whole extra large pizza all by herself. She sometimes asks me to cook for her but her lack of activity means she can't really benefit from eating the way I eat and still see progress. She says that her age and her knees mean it's too late for her. She's 57.


My father -

He's always been a heavy drinker and never really had the best eating habits. Somehow though he managed to maintain a high enough activity level doing a lot of bicycling and being a member of a racquetball league to keep it off and keep in good looking shape. In 2001 when he moved to Pittsburgh from Florida all that changed and he no longer did any form of exercise. He hurt his back a few years ago so he has to be careful about what he does now. He bought a set of resistance bands and an adjustable kettlebell a few years ago and made some progress in both weight and less back pain while doing them semi-regularly, but he has since allowed them to fall off admitting he just lost motivation to keep trying. He says that "the day he hurt his back was the day he became an old man." He commends me on my weight loss progress but you can tell he is a bit salty about the fact that our situations have somewhat reversed. It depresses him that he is now in worse shape than his formerly obese son. Yet he admits he doesn't have the motivation to do anything about it.

Is there anything I can do to motivate either one of them?

AprilOneFourFour

Probably not. It's very difficult. People have to want change AND have the motivation to do something about it. Lots of people don't have the latter and, honestly, not everyone sincerely wants the former, despite what they say. It really has to come from within.

Of course you could try talking to them, but even if you get along really well, family members can find it hard to hear these sort of things from each other.

This is an odd suggestion, but one thing that makes alot of people want to change is seeing a photo of themselves. You could suggest having a family snap taken and see if that has an impact. I really don't mean this to be mean, but it would be non-judgemental.

I have had a similar situation, but have never managed to solve the problem. I do sometimes wonder if my family member isn't actually that bothered when it comes down to it.