LHS alumnus finds fame on Facebook

For one former La Grande High School gridiron star, Facebook, rather than football, has proven to be his claim to fame.

On July 18, Chris Berg, who graduated from La Grande High School in 1991 and now lives in Vancouver, Washington, posted a side-by-side photo of himself on the social media network, not to show off the results of a workout or diet regimen, but to compare his younger, more fit body to his current body, or as he puts it on the post, his “dadbod.”

“When I was 21, I was dangerously thin,” the post that shows a side-by-side comparison of him then and him now, states. “No matter what I tried, I could not cover up my abs or my muscles. Women flocked to me concerned for my health, without being asked. All my pants were baggy and my shirts a size medium. It was awful.”

The post goes on to explain that he was tired of the long stares of disgust from the ladies at the bars or random men asking him what he benched, so he started the journey to transform his body into a temple of health.

“After 23 years, I am now near a perfect ‘dadbod.’ Women leave me alone now knowing that I do not need to be nursed back to health. No men ask me if I can spot them at the gym, because I do not go,” Berg said on Facebook. “It feels good to see something through … something for me.”

The post currently has 70,000 likes, 19,311 comments and 34,659 shares. Berg said his friends list has grown to 5,000, “and I only know like 12 people,” he said, adding that more requests come daily. Some of the comments on the post have been interesting, Berg said. He said some people understand the joke, while others don’t, he said. What’s even more concerning, he said, is he’s been accused of promoting the “fat lifestyle.”

The post implores that if “you’re tired of looking into a mirror and seeing where one muscle ends and another one begins, or being asked to take your shirt off by people you don’t know, I invite you to join me on my journey to health.”