Comments on: Stairway to Health, or, Let’s Judge People for Not Taking the Stairs.

By: KellyK

KellyK — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:02:22 +0000

Okay, I’m six months late in saying this, but you totally have my sympathy on the shin splints. Owie!

By: Ija_Ijevna

Ija_Ijevna — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:41:46 +0000

Taking the stairs/the elevator opposition as a base for a moral judgement? Jeez, it’s not even funny anymore, it’s downright discriminating. All the health/fitness issueas aside, using a lift it’s just a personal choice that hurts noone. To modify a wonderful phrase of someone on Shapely Prose, it’s a lift, not genocide!

I like climbing. Sure, stair climbing or even using the gym stepper (mmm, elliptical…) can’t compare with the heady joy of high mountains, but still – I like it. Not for the supposed health it brings (not with my knees), and certainly not for the moral superiority (just ridiculous). I just happen to enjoy this specific kind of exercise.
However I wouldn’t even dream of passing any kind of judgement, based upon the stairs/elevator factor. As you wrote, someone could have asthma, faulty knee, heart condition or simply (yes, shocking) a fancy to use an elevator.

My 21 year old sister is a professional ballroom dancer. Her training schedule is 4-5 hrs of vigorous dancing in high heels five times a week, plus several hours long tournaments during weekends. It’s a veritable hell for legs. She always uses the elevator, and always sits in trams/buses simply not to collapse. As a consequence, she constantly has to deal with a moral outrage: a young, healthy girl? Why the hell won’t she use stairs? Why the hell won’t she stand in the public transport? Well, maybe because she needs some rest? Or maybe she just feels like it?

Taking stairs won’t make you better. It won’t necessarily make you healthier. It’s not even guaranteed that it’ll make you happier. So why the high horse?
/Sorry for any mistakes I made. English isn’t my first language./

By: amelia logan

amelia logan — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:15:37 +0000

As a fellow dietetics student i definitely respect you for loving yourself no matter your size.
I run a lot and my knee gets hurt a lot as a result. I remember a few days that I went to the gym and I felt like such a jerk because after running for 45 minutes I could hardly walk on the stairs. I had to take the elevator down a floor at the GYM! What a sin! It may not have looked like I needed to since I am in good shape and wasn’t limping or wearing an obtrusive brace.

It just goes to show you can’t look at someone and know their story. Its a really huge waste of energy to even spend time thinking about other people for something so small as riding the elevator anyhow.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:05:11 +0000

Bravo Kali!

By: Kali

Kali — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:47:53 +0000

Ugh, the stairs thing.

I’ve got a huge heaping pile of invisible disabilities. And oh, the crap I get sometimes for taking the elevators…

The last time someone gave me shit about it, I looked at him and said, “Look, I have a genetic condition that has screwed up all of my joints, especially my knees and hips. If I walk up the stairs, I risk falling down a flight of stairs – which has happened multiple times – and I’m going to be in more pain than you’ve ever experienced even if I don’t fall. You get your judgmental ass out of the elevator if that’s your choice, but don’t you dare lecture me on mine.”

…he looked like he’d just been hit in the face. Guess they don’t expect people to tell them what their attitude looks like from this side of the fence.

~Kali

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:19:49 +0000

Oh, and then plantar fasciitis because my feet suck.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:19:32 +0000

Shint-splints here! From running!

By: KellyK

KellyK — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:18:24 +0000

Yeah…me too, though it was the ankle in my case. Something about doing a crap-ton of walking, then going to the gym and hitting the treadmill or exercise bike.

By: Bri

Bri — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:12:08 +0000

Meerkat, Can you remember when or where (which blog) that was posted? As feed admin, I would like to know more about this…

Bri

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:38:25 +0000

I actually wrote an email to the hospital (can’t remember the dept. specifically, but whoever was responsible for the signs) about my concern for people judging those with disabilities and mobility issues, and got kind of a long non-response in return, saying stuff like, “That’s not our intent; people should know that these signs only apply to those who are able; these signs are targeting staff members and not patients or the general public,” blah blah blah.

And I was thinking — like, what, no staff members of the hospital have disabilities? (Because, I assure you, many do.) And no patients or members of the general public are going to see these signs and assume they apply to them while they’re waiting for an elevator? It was just kind of stupid and totally unreflective on the part of the hospital, and it annoyed me greatly that they weren’t even willing to think about it.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:07:24 +0000

hate being out of breath in public, like people are going to judge me for being fat and out of breath.

Yep, same here. I know this feeling well. I am very self-conscious about either sweating or being out of breath, because I have this feeling that people are going to be like, “Eeeew, look at the sweaty gasping fat lady!!!!” Which, you know, is what’s going to happen to anyone if they dare to exercise vigorously (or take a bunch of stairs) in public.

I realize I shouldn’t care, but sometimes it’s hard not to.

By: meerkat

meerkat — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:18:03 +0000

Ah, I left out the part where I have seen “The stairs are always the healthier choice” (why don’t you take the stairs??? don’t you want to be healthy?!?) on the Fat-o-sphere feed itself. Disapprove.

By: meerkat

meerkat — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:16:26 +0000

Amen. I don’t generally mind single flights of stairs but I take the escalator when there is one, and if there are three storeys’ worth of stairs I might go out of my way to find the escalator or even *horrified gasp* wait for the elevator. It’s mostly because I hate being out of breath in public, like people are going to judge me for being fat and out of breath. If not for that, I would have a lower tiredness/heavy-things-carrying threshold for taking the elevator up the two flights from the subway.

By: Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:06:29 +0000

Chartreuse – you forgot one group – people who *want* to take the elevator. They’re not some special privilege in most places.

My high school’s elevator was restricted to teachers, staff, and students allowed to because of illness or injury. Or those taking carts up/down stairs.

By: Chartreuse

Chartreuse — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:34:25 +0000

This astonishes me as well. A few weeks ago, my medical student peers were complaining, at the *hospital* of all places, about people taking one floor on elevators. I said something along the lines of, “they might have an invisible disability” and they responded “Yeah, right, what kind of thing would prevent someone from walking up a flight of stairs??” Sigh. I do find it helpful to have a list to rattle off of possible reasons:

- anyone with a rheumatic illness (lupus, fibromyalgia, etc) who needs to ration their energy very carefully
- anyone with joint problems or potential joint problems (osteoarthritis, sports injuries, etc)
- anyone with a mental illness that increases fatigue, makes decision-making hard, etc (major depression, most notably)
- anyone with a balance issue (vertigo, as mentioned above, but also simple aging related issues, and a million other reasons)
- anybody who exercised too hard the day before and now has sore hamstrings or quads…

By: human

human — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:34:59 +0000

Thank you, lilacsigil… that mental image of you taking out a staircase full of nose in the air skinny stair people just made my day :)

By: Kath

Kath — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:54:48 +0000

I don’t use our stairs at work because they are hot, dirty and the doors don’t always work properly. But I still get “looks” when my male colleagues use them (one only because he’s bullied into it by another) and I say “I’ll meet you in the meeting room, I’m using the lift.”

I live up a flight of stairs. I pop up and down them with ease and no thought, despite my “morbidly obese” body. How dare anyone judge me because I choose not to use them elsewhere.

By: Lyndsay

Lyndsay — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:29:29 +0000

“There are no obligatory stairs to the bathroom in every restaurant.”

So true. I moved to Toronto recently and have been noticing this. Also, would it have been that hard to build more escalators in the subway stations? Would it have been that hard to build elevators at every station too? It would help with bring a bike, a stroller and people with disabilities. I taught a practicum at Central Tech which has six floors and rarely used elevators. Thankfully OISE has six elevators though I’ll take stairs to the second floor if I think it’ll be quicker (which is usually). And yes, hauling heavy groceries home, especially in the cold, is not fun. I can relate!

By: Rigby

Rigby — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:30:11 +0000

One of the dorms here has 10 floors and anyone who takes the elevator to any floor below the fifth is derided. I was helping out another RA on the fourth floor, and I have a really bad leg, so I took the elevator. As I got off, one girl I was riding with called me a fatass. I can’t imagine how badly the judging would be if I was only visiting someone on the second floor.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:25:03 +0000

Stairs are easier than elevators for me, too! I get motion sickness, so elevators tend to make me feel dizzy, lightheaded and nauseous. Plus, I just plain enjoy running up the stairs. If I’m with a group, and they take the elevator, I try to beat them to the floor we’re going to.

(Like you, though, I can only go fast up stairs. I have to walk down them, otherwise I will probably fall.)

But I absolutely do not care what choices anyone *ELSE* makes about how to get up and down. Sheesh.