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“The unbelievably tense interview, which was aired last week, went from bad to worse after Kieser answered yes to Swan’s question “Would you say that I am lazy?”

“You have been, but I have seen you change from being lazy to getting into exercise as well, so I’ve seen you change that mindset,” Kieser went on to say.

Swan retorted: “So you think raising three children and working sometimes 14 hours a day is lazy?”

Kieser said: “I think that not fitting in exercise and not being active with your kids and trying to teach them a healthy lifestyle is definitely not the right way to go, yeah.”

Kieser was appearing in the radio segment after the story about her fifth pregnancy was picked up by a number of media outlets, incuding Mix FM and the Today Show.

Kieser claims she has found a way to beat cravings, telling news.com.au “for the first four pregnancies, I got so fat because I let my cravings control me. For this one, I wanted to see if I could control them. And I have.”

After sharing stories about morning sickness, Mix FM’s Swan made the jump into the weight debate — an issue Kieser and husband Julius spoke about to news.com.au last year.

“There is a small proportion of obese people who genuinely need help. The problem is the other group of people who are fat and lazy; who just take advantage of all the help that is out there because they think they deserve it,” Julius said at the time.

The Kiesers “were luckily able to source a copy of the interview from a station insider,” which they have uploaded and responded to in a post on their website.

Here’s how the interview went down:

Chrissie Swan: I am fat and you definitely hit a nerve with me because … You know me, would you say that I am lazy?

Sharny Kieser: Um … Well yeah you have been, but I have seen you change from being lazy to getting into exercise as well, so I’ve seen you change that mindset.

CS: So you think raising three children and working sometimes 14 hours a day is lazy?

SK: I think that not fitting in exercise and not being active with your kids and trying to teach them a healthy lifestyle is definitely not the right way to go, yeah.

CS: What if I were to say to you that that is completely unrealistic and offensive and untrue?

SK: Why is it unrealistic to teach your kids to be healthy?

CS: I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about how possible it is. It’s very easy for you Sharny, whose entire life and career is in runners and running around working. So when your children are involved in your work and your job everyday is to be down at the park and running then it’s all very well to say that’s possible. When you say that fat people are lazy, you are perpetuating a myth, and you are contributing to a stigma that is untrue.

SK: Well I completely disagree with that because firstly, Julius was in finance and I was in radio and we had kids and we were still active because we chose to be active. We talk to people every day that are in different jobs that are running massive corporations and are still active with their kids every day. It’s either do you sit on the couch and eat with them for entertainment, or do you get outside and run around and play with them and not make it about food.

CS: [interrupts] What’s to say that someone like me and millions of other people that look like me are not running around the park with their kids?

SK: That’s great then — they’re not lazy, they don’t have that mindset. It’s the mindset that we’re talking about.

CS: [interrupts] What about all the people that look like normal people that don’t take their kids to the park?

SK: Again yeah, they’re lazy, I absolutely agree with that.

CS: I just think you need to be so careful Sharny because there is a massive problem with bullying and stigmatising overweight people.

SK: [interrupts] And what about people who are fit and healthy that are getting discriminated against at work because they’re eating a salad?

CS: [interrupts] Well that is a massive minority!

SK: It isn’t a minority, it’s huge, we get emails about it all the time.

CS: Well that is ridiculous! That is a ridiculous argument.

SK: It’s not a ridiculous argument. We get emails all the time from people who get embarrassed when people say ‘Oh come on, have a pie, have a Tim Tam, it’s not going to do anything.

MIX FM co-host Jane Hall: Really? I’ve never come across anything like that.

CS: Well that’s absurd. Anyway, I just want to say, be very careful, there are a lot of people that are not busy when they are overweight. This sort of mindset and discrimination is leading to all sorts of bullying in our schoolyards. It concerns me greatly that parents such as these two are saying things like ‘fat people are lazy’ ‘fat people are stupid’ ‘fat people are less than’ and this is not helping. That’s my concern. This is not helping anyone.”

What do you think about this debate? Share you thoughts in the comments below.

This article originally appeared on news.com.au

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  • Good on Chrissie Swan for challenging this myth and for trying to eliminate this stigma around weight. Why do people feel the need to label people about their size? It perplexes me!

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  • Weight and exercise isn’t a one size fits all. Some people can do lots of exercise and be double the weight of another and some can do hardly any exercise and be half the size. Every situation is going to be different. Let’s embrace variety.

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  • good on you Chrissie for sticking up for yourself and others….i hate when fitness models/trainers push their thoughts/beliefs/ opinions on others and dont know how to compromise.

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  • I follow some of Sharny and Julius’s blogs but feel they have lost tough a bit of what it’s like for a lot of us in the real world. Yes ideally we would make time for exercise but sometimes we are doing all we can just to get through the day. Good on Chrissie Swan.

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  • I love Chrissie Swan

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  • Just because you’re bigger doesn’t mean you’re lazy.

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  • I’m a big girl and struggling to loose weight at the moment because of my lifestyle I’m certainly not lazy but my son is having so many issues at school so I’m not home long enough to eat proper meals – I’m not eating take away but it’s just things like I can only grab a sandwhich as I run out the door because I have to go and sit with him int he classroom while he has a tantrum in the corner – my whole system is out of balance.

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  • wow how awkward and tense it would’ve been for her. I admire Chrissie.

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  • Being overweight doesn’t translate to be lazy, nor does being medium or underweight translate to being fit and active. Sounded like an awkward interview with both putting their foot where it probably shouldn’t have been.

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  • Would have been so awkward if you were there :S

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  • I admire Chrissy Swan for being outspoken about the battle she’s had with her weight. She’s not afraid to open her heart and soul to speak about problems that so many women face. Sharny Kieser should know better than to make sweeping generalizations about people’s weight and lifestyle. Several sayings come to mind, that she would do well to take notice of … “Appearances can be deceptive”, “You should never judge another person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes”, and “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then say nothing”. Yes, she’s put the effort in to her lifestyle choices, and so many of us would like to do more than we do to become healthier. But because of finances, other health issues and a zillion other things, we’re not able to measure up to the high standards that people like her say we should be achieving. Good on her for doing what she’s done, but stop encouraging the bullying, criticism and judgemental attitude by sprouting her own biased opinions.

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  • Sounds tensed, would have been exciting to hear it live.

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  • Sharny is generalising about people and the way theylook. Some people can exercise a lot and still look fat.

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  • I can imagine this would have been tense

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  • Christy is spot on. There ARE normal sized foljs who feed their kids rubbish and dont exercise. Sharny is a goose

    Reply

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