To not understand how this different from putting an anorexic model on the cover

[Spinderelle]

Cosmopolitan have a morbidly obese model on their cover this month. I am absolutely behind the idea of body positivity - after children my body is far from perfect and it’s nice to see companies like ASOS use larger women and not airbrush stretch marks etc.

But this model is dangerously obese and risking her health. How is that any different from having a dangerously thin model on the cover?

She looks awful
and people trying to justify looking like her will be ill when they get old.
Healthy sizes are between 8 and 14
more than that is unhealthy - measured by body fat percentage and visceral fat.

My body fat is 25% - I wear size 8/10 clothes

I can see there's a difference as explained below, but I still don't see why we can't just have healthy, happy-looking women of a normal, healthy weight. You do see it sometimes, so I hope that's on the way.

I saw the cover too this morning - I just thought "why celebrate something that is not good for you and that we're all being told we should try to avoid". It's kind of like showing someone smoking.

Fat shaming is bad, and I think remarking on people's weight, unless you are their doctor, or they want to have an honest conversation with you about it, is unacceptable. Everyone should be respected for who they are and not judged for their body. But it is odd to encourage and celebrate obesity - and while we're not pressured into looking fat the same way we are into looking thin, at the moment, it does happen in some parts of the world, it's not impossible.

I agree with verbena87...it is not healthy at either end of the weight scales..I have been 'big' but slim in the past. I am tall , have huge wide feet and hands and have always been muscular , strong and fit, my ideal weight is about 10 1/2 stones. I was never bothered about how I looked to other people as I could always find good clothes (shoes were a problem sometimes) and knew I looked good....
Then , almost 18 years ago I had a really bad breakdown and in the intervening years have been prescribed loads of different drugs , some of which have made me so lethargic that I couldn't get out of bed and exercising was not going to happen; at the same time I was always feeling hungry so the weight piled on...a couple of years ago I was 22 stone and really felt dreadful, hideous and ashamed.People would stare and it was humiliating . So I gradually reduced my medication , some difficulties with withdrawal symtoms were horrible
but I am now 18 stone and intend to carry on until I am back to below 11. For me this magazine cover is how I used to be , bar the tattoos and is just incredibly unhealthy.

@MarthaArthur - imgur.com/gallery/260BU

She's known for bullying online and scamming people

I think she's beautiful 🤷‍♀️

ok people keep saying too thin but PLEASE STOP saying anorexic or obese is just as bad as anorexic pushing.WRONG. ANOREXiA IS A REAL AND FATAL(ONE OF THE WORST) ILLNESS'S.
when your taking please change your words from describing this illness compared to obesity.its is not the same. Obese to extreme underweight yes.but anorexia is a killing horrific disease.
would you say obese woman compared to a cancer ridden thin woman.no. obese and underweight.
anorexia is an illness.fatal.devistating not on the spectrum of weights.

She looks great. Get over yourselves. There's more than one way to be.

The model is a very unhealthy size and not something anyone should be aspiring to look like. I think the pendulum has swung too far in trying to get society to 'accept' all body shapes, including morbid obesity, as normal. It's not.

We are literally shortening our projected lifespans by pretending that fatness and obesity are perfectly normal and acceptable and must never be discussed as anything that needs to be addressed and changed.

I agree. Somehow this makes me uncomfortable and for some reason reminds me of the people who ran Victorian freak shows. Not to disparage the model in any way, but I don't think the business bods at Cosmo are thinking the same way as the body-positive movement are, iyswim? I actually wonder if this is actually as unhealthy as so-called heroin chic was, in its own way

I too have been big and I have been small. I'm veering towards too big at the moment but I am controlling it. Just.. I have varied between a size 8 and a size 20 and I know which one is healthy and which isn't.

I don't want to see morbidly obese models on magazine covers. She'll be diabetic before she's 50 along with lots of other health problems, probably related to her knees and other joints. Why advertise on a magazine like this is OK?

It's not normalising morbid obesity, because most people are not going to think this model looks good, and most people don't want to look anything like her. Lets be real, most people are going to have negative thoughts about this photo (and that's putting it politely)
As far as extreme thinness due to annorexia, most people would probably feel repulsed by images of that as well but magazine covers tend to use models who are as thin as possible without going into that territory.

It is a disgrace, if they felt they had to do something why could they not put a normal sized curvy girl in the picture instead of someone so obviously clinically obese. Never mind the disgusting tattoos, like someone off Jeremy Kyle.

It's no different and I say this as someone at my fattest 15.2. I just wish mags would start having normal people on the cover. By "normal" I mean not supermodel looks. As the mum of a gorgeous Ds aged 13 who has severe SEN and looks "different" I wish more mags/catalogues/ads would use children with SEN. It just might, might stop some of the staring we get.

I don’t think the cover works because it is not aspirational. No one would aspire to being morbidly obese.

There are anorexics on the front cover every month!

Actually I’m being unfair, they usually have a celeb on the cover. But magazines are full of anorexic models, none the less

She looks great. Get over yourselves. There is more than one way to be
She looks great in your opinion, she looks absolutely dreadful in my opinion. I have been obese myself (though not as obese as this model), and seeing photos like this just make me even determined to lose more weight.
I haven't bought Cosmo for years, though I did when I was younger. I think I'd probably have left this edition on the shelves.

Speaking as someone who was 6+ stone overweight I think it’s totally irresponsible of them to put her on the cover. Whilst I agree no one is going to aspire to be bigger I do think that it validates whose who are already obese. When I was bigger if I saw this I’d think that it was ok to be this big when actually it was doing my body huge amounts of harm. I’ve got another 4 stone to lose but I ready feel better for losing 2 stone, my blood pressure is down, asthma is better, joints are less painful. Why can’t they use a model with a healthy body weight?

people trying to justify looking like her will be ill when they get old

Or even if they get old; you don't very often see really aged people this size and there's a reason for that

If this was nicotine she was overindulging in instead of food she'd be slated for being selfish and disgusting, not to mention the potential cost to the NHS, her family's welfare and all the rest

Interesting that it doesn't happen so much with obesity ... and no, I don't smoke

Sorry for the typos!

It's just a very cynical advertising ploy IMO - on the basis that any publicity is better than none,

Have their sales figures been dipping lately?

The fat shaming here masquerading as health concern is truly shocking. Have a word with yourselves.

Totally agree. Both being dangerously thin and obese/overweight are bad for your health and a majority of the time avoidable (excluding genuine health conditions)

So to ‘advertise’ them like they are desirable, is wrong.

She started putting on all the weight at the age of ten when her mother was shot twice in the head. It doesn't seem like she's had the easiest life. What I'd love to see is women supporting other women. Yes, she's morbidly obese and there are reasons for it. I don't think she's promoting unhealthy eating. She's trying to pave the way for women feeling better about themselves and she's doing a good job. She's making incredible amounts of money, has 1.5 million followers and is spreading a message of joy. She seems happy. She's not trying to recruit people to the fatty team. We'll happily watch TV programmes where women go under the knife to look perfect. All the Housewives of Cheshire type programmes, documentaries about people having their labia tidied up for cosmetic reasons, all the adverts for surgery we see in the back of magazines, Love Island where it's fine for people to fuck each other on the telly to try and get famous... it's endless. We have A LOT to worry about as women. And when we turn on each other, there really is little hope for us. This woman is putting her own life at risk (we assume) just as rock climbers do, people who drive fast, women who sail down the Amazon on their own... She's not encouraging people to eat too much. She's encouraging us to be KIND to one another.

I think this haunts me because when i used to work in care homes we had a few bariatric residents who had had strokes and other ailments that made them bedridden. Not only was it very hard on the carers caring for them physically, it was hard for the resident being in that position. The thing that haunted me the most was fire safety briefings. In a home setting if a fire breaks out the people who are gotten out are the walkers and the ones who can be picked up and carried out. Bariatric patients are always left until last and only when the fires being tackled. Who would willingly want to risk that.