Seattle Seahawks’ Eddie Lacy didn’t start the season very well. He has experienced five carries, three yards, and one healthy scratch. The day the team beat the San Francisco 49ers, Lacy was off the roster. He acknowledged that sometimes you might not like what happened, but you can only control what is in your control. The elephant in the room, however, was his weight. According to ESPN, Lacy gets nervous when doing interviews and even sweats and this time he carried a towel. He was meeting ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg to address his weight issue.
'China food' is Lacy’s favorite
Lacy loves food, especially “China food” and it has become what defines him. But you know the internet, people there can make fun of you, and Lacy has experienced so much mockery that he already has a couple of nicknames. The player admitted that he has been unable to control his weight, but it wasn’t a big issue until he went to Alabama for college and life became different for him. Lacy spoke to ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg and expressed the challenges he faces due to his weight.
Lacy said that he could log into his Twitter account and find a fat comment in between the other comments. For instance, he would tweet “Today is a beautiful day!” and a Twitter user would comment “Oh yeah?
You fat,” and he would just wonder, what does someone get by commenting that way? He wasn’t sure how one would escape the embarrassment after the internet turned his/her weaknesses or flaws into memes.
His first year in Tuscaloosa was the worst year of his life. For four years he had somebody order him on what to do, make him big, strong, fast, and turn him into a bionic person.
He soon realized that pushing one’s body makes it respond. But upon joining the pros and the Green Bay Packers, things changed, and after his first experience, Lacy asked himself if that was all they had to do. During his third year in the team, Packers head coach Mike McCarthy criticized his performance and his weight maintaining efforts.
He pointed out that his offseason the previous year was not that good and he needed to cut his weight before playing that year.
He got paid $55,000 for every weight goal
In 2016, Lacy said that he was tired of talking about his weight and McCarthy backed him up saying that he was done talking about people’s weight too. He had never spoken of an individual’s weight before the press conferences since it wasn’t something he could address. McCarthy also added that he had talked about Eddie’s particular case and he could no longer do it again. Lacy left the Packers to sign with the Seattle Seahawks. He tried to lose a couple of pounds as people joked about it and he was paid $55,000 for every weight goal he achieved.
However, his public spectacle turned into public shaming, and Lacy felt uncomfortable with the negative things people said.
Lacy stated that he wrestles with his “fried-food demons” in private. He added that when he is mocked due to his weight, he is unable to just shake it off or say something back and he can only read the posts, perhaps get mad and move on. Even after dropping his weight to 225 pounds, some would still call him a fat piece of ‘s—t.' No one would want to live that way, feeling like the internet despises you for your flaws. Every time he opens his phone, Lacy is welcomed with insults.
