I think there is a lot of baseline resentment in American (perhaps even Western?) teens towards gym teachers and coaches. The punchline "how can a gym teacher teach health and physical education if they themselves are unhealthy?" is incredibly common. My own gym teachers were various combinations of lifetime smokers, overweight, bullies, and sexual harassers of 13 yr old girls. As a teen looking to rebel against authority calling out these basic hypocrisies can feel empowering. If we add on the complicated nature of self-image and health and the way that gym classes publicly display bodies in changing rooms and athletic abilities in sports, then it starts to make sense why the out-of-shape gym teacher and the environment thay can come to embody is such a target of hatred.
NCAA football is barbaric, and it is absolutely OK to mock a millionaire asshole whose job yelling and screaming at unpaid teenagers to stop being a pussy and crawl on the 150 degree turf.
I think there is a lot of baseline resentment in American (perhaps even Western?) teens towards gym teachers and coaches. The punchline "how can a gym teacher teach health and physical education if they themselves are unhealthy?" is incredibly common. My own gym teachers were various combinations of lifetime smokers, overweight, bullies, and sexual harassers of 13 yr old girls. As a teen looking to rebel against authority calling out these basic hypocrisies can feel empowering. If we add on the complicated nature of self-image and health and the way that gym classes publicly display bodies in changing rooms and athletic abilities in sports, then it starts to make sense why the out-of-shape gym teacher and the environment thay can come to embody is such a target of hatred.
NCAA football is barbaric, and it is absolutely OK to mock a millionaire asshole whose job yelling and screaming at unpaid teenagers to stop being a pussy and crawl on the 150 degree turf.