Eddie Lacy Opened Up About The Hardships Of Being A Heavyweight, And No - I'm Not Kidding

ESPN- “I could pull up my Twitter right now and there would be a fat comment in there somewhere,” he says. “Like I could tweet, ‘Today is a beautiful day!’ and someone would be like, ‘Oh yeah? You fat.’ I sit there and wonder: ‘What do you get out of that?'”

…And while he lost weight — albeit slowly — getting down to where he wanted (around 240 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame) and keeping it off was a miserable slog during his Packers years. In the meantime, people photoshopped pictures of Lacy’s stomach to make it seem like he had a Santa Claus physique. Someone searched through his Twitter account and noticed that back in college he had an affinity for Chinese food, and he loved tweeting about it. They screenshotted every tweet and made a collage that quickly went viral.

“I always called it China food,” Lacy, 27, says with a grin. “There is no way around it, I love sesame chicken and shrimp fried rice so much. It’s awesome.”

He chuckled at first, but the collage also stung. It kept showing up in his feed, an endless cycle of snark, rebooted each day. “It sucks,” Lacy says. “It definitely sent me into a funk. I wish I could understand what they get out of it.”

…Lacy is bombarded with insults every time he opens an app on his phone.

“You just can’t shake it,” he says. “And no matter what, you can’t say nothing back to them. You just have to read it, get mad or however it makes you feel, and move on. I could be 225 and they’d still be like, ‘You’re still a fat piece of s — .'”

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Yup, this should do it. If I know the internet like I think I know the internet then this will definitely silence the haters. After all, the best way to get trolls to stop making the same repetitive fat jokes about an overweight professional athlete that can't stop eating China food is to have that professional athlete do an overly dramatic sit down interview talking about how hard it is to take a joke about his inability to stop eating China food. Surely all those outspoken strangers online will be able to sympathize with the fact that he can't put down the extra spare rib when the only requirements of his multi-million dollar job are to power his will and control his portions. I suppose some might consider this 'Onion'-esque sob story to be laughably counterproductive, but those people clearly don't understand that ESPN historically provides quite the generous spread. 

Listen, I get the frustration that results from being on the ass end of fat jokes from hundreds of thousands of strangers. I really do. It sucks that Eddie Lacy has to live with the fact that people are probably going to make jokes about his weight no matter what his weight happens to be. However, it's a bit premature to complain about the inaccuracy of those jokes before they are even inaccurate. Saying that a 225 pound Eddie Lacy would still be the target of online bullying is probably true, but - after taking one look at Eddie Lacy - I can definitely say that it's also very much a hypothetical. 

Honestly, at this point I find it completely and utterly disingenuous that Eddie Lacy hasn't embraced his belly. What a terrible role model for the overweight community. Just think the wonders a professional running back that refuses to adhere to society's "athletic" norm could do for the self esteem of big people everywhere, and instead he's bitching about Twitter mentions? Really!?!

We are talking about a guy that was collecting a biweekly middle class salary because he was able to shed 2-3 measly pounds between offseason weigh-ins. He made more money off getting signed as a gluttonous garbage dump than a vast majority of people will make working their 9-5 for the next 12 months. When you've legitimately profited off tipping the scales it might be wise to wipe away the Lo Mein noodles, lean in, and take some harmless - albeit excessive - ribbing on the chin. If only because you have backup right underneath it.