Glorifying obsesity

[Poppybob]

I find it bizarre that media and social platforms are glorifying obesity. Am not talking about people putting pictures of themselves on social media and living their lives in general, and am NOT saying overweight/obese people should be hiding.... but actual social media stars who are promoting obesity and how good/gorgeous they are etc etc. It's unhealthy!!! Takes 10-20years off your life! The Co - morbidities from being dangerously overweight alone can shorten your life. It's on par with smoking it's so bad for your health. And I worry about my kids looking at this and thinking that it will be OK for them to be very overweight.

Agreed. I’m about 2 stone overweight. I’m tall so people don’t agree I’m overweight (polite maybe?) but I am, according to bmi and gp had suggested to loose weight.
I struggle in the heat which I never did when slimmer. How anyone can be happy when obese or overweight I don’t know. Not judging as many have medical issues but from my own experience at being overweight , I can’t cope with it. So I’m trying to do something about it.
I think it’s great to show realistic curvy women. But not very overweight/obese. Unpopular I know ….

I’m approaching obese on the bmi chart. Totally agree with you.

I think I've been around enough of it - including the sites that were responsible for the ABC Diet, as they were my main area of focus at one time - to know exactly what is out there and the language used about mostly women and girls' bodies and their moral worth/character as represented by their physical shape, size and proportion.

That's not what the OP said at all! There is another pandemic is the UK and it's obesity. I commented on Facebook about a story which glorified obesity - the young lady in question was at least a size 20.

I used to work in the funeral trade and it's so very difficult to move a heavier person around with dignity. Mortuary trays are being made bigger, trolleys and being made stronger, even the backs of hearses are being made wider to fit some of the coffins in.

Cremators at crematoria are being made bigger - I've struggled once with a lady who's coffin was over 4 foot wide. It took 4 of us to ensure she was put into the crematorium safely.

People who are obese by choice ie they cannot control their eating or don't seek help for food addiction or whatever are very selfish and don't think about the people in the health service who has to deal with these people.

It even extends to firefighters who have to crane the biggest people out of windows as they simply won't fit through the front door.

Something needs to happen. I say this as someone who's struggled with my weight my whole life but have finally got to grips and now a healthy BMI

‘The one for sanitary protection is going to be a woman of course’

😂😂🤣 not if Dylan can helpit.

It's really not unpopular. The entire world hates fat people, and makes it very known.

I dont really know much about her, Ive seen pictures of her and she looks phenomenal, like a force of nature, she is stunningly beautiful in my eyes

But, you can bet your life that at some point in the future, when her joints and heart needs help, she will be losing weight, perhaps even join up with a weight loss provider, or have surgery or any number of things

Its happened over the years with all big female performers (the males tend to stay fat)

I think we can become kinder as a society and not glorify obesity though. It's so bad people mistake obesity as being overweight now. I think you're mistaken if you think kids don't get picked on for being fat, they definitely do. Cancel culture has got so bad too. I think we've become much less kinder on the whole tbh.

I became obese during covid. When I walked around our local town I looked quite average, I knew I was overweight but I just ignored it. More recently we went to visit family in Asia. I felt huge and embarrassed. I've lost a significant amount of weight and nearly back into the healthy weight range.

So maybe it's just me but body positivity and being surrounded by images of women far larger than me who seem healthy wasn't great and it definitely normalised being obese.

What came first, obesity or the multi million pound/dollar industry that sells diet shakes, diet food, diet supplements etc?

They literally feed off each other!

The OP didn't say she hates fat people. Why is it when the dangers of obesity get talked about, people jump to the assumption that whoever says this hates fat people?! The health implications of being obese and underweight are undeniable. We're happy to protest the dangerously underweight models, in fact we banned them! But whimper a word about the obesity epidemic and you're suddenly someone who hates fat people.

I was thinking that when I wrote that!!!!

I agree 100%. Media of all types has become so eager in it's wokeness to be 'diverse' it is actually promoting damaging things. It's all deeply disturbing. It's not that obese can't be beautiful. Some bodies are naturally larger and that's different but this zealous, cult like promotion of obesity as it is to be immediately applauded when seen is dangerous. The cult of being dangerously thin is just as bad. Let's promote HEALTHY.

I used to live in fear of this, of toilets collapsing under me, of needing to be rescued and people not being able to lift me, of what would happen when I die and sizing up coffins and things

Yes all very odd things to be worried about and Im not saying was my main motivation to lose weight but something in the back of my mind certainly.

Im still not sure that I have the strength to hold my own body up, so if I needed crutches for example, not sure I can hold myself up on them

If the entire world hated fat people, they wouldn't be on the TV at all...

I don't know why people try to take perfectly sensible threads off on a tangent, just because the discussion triggers them but it's tiresome.

People who are obese by choice ie they cannot control their eating or don't seek help for food addiction or whatever are very selfish and don't think about the people in the health service who has to deal with these people.

I don’t know anyone who is obese by choice.
Not being able to control what they eat is an eating disorder, and there is very little help for that - try going to your gp and ask for help for food addiction!
Go to SW or WW and partake of a temporary fix that ultimately causes more disordered eating. Very few people have lost weight and maintained on these diets - most put it all back in and more.

People in the health service at some point must surely realise that handing out diet advice that’s formed on 70+ years of bad science, and having fast food outlets (like costa and Starbucks) within hospitals is not sending a consistent message.

Sort out the diet advice, ditch fast food outlets, ban advertising at all of McDonald’s and anything like that.

I’m not arguing that people should just get fatter and fatter and be happy about it, I’m saying that for most fat people it’s not a choice, it’s a difficult problem that we’re not happy with either! Whatever’s being done now isn’t working, but demonising Lizzo isn’t going to fix obesity.

Sure there’s an obesity pandemic, but it needs to be fixed from the roots up. Fat shaming will not fix it.

I’d rather see crappy food adverts banned than fat people in adverts banned.

I agree, inclusivity is a good thing. It would be more effective to have total ban on fast food and junk food advertising, and subsidies on fresh fruit and veg paid with by taxes on ultra processed foods.

She has lost a lot of weight, she just doesn't spout on about losing weight. She talk about loving her body for what it does for her, she appreciates her body and looks after it with love by eating good food that nourishes it, exercising it with joyful activities and talking with self love and compassion.
If a thin person said it it wouldn't be questioned.

Lizzo is described in the media as being stunning.
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Shes obese. That's a fact. That's not shaming her, that's just stating a fact.
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She's not a role model.
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She is promoting gluttony
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How does she promote gluttony? By existing are you saying she shouldn't be a star because she is fat. Does she encourage people to eat their weights worth in food?
Lizzos message is clear regardless of how you look, you are worthy and deserving of love? Love yourself regardless of how you look? How can that be negative.
She is also a kick ass performer to be able to dance and sing and play the flute how she does during her show takes real real effort. If you follow here you will she exercises loads, she has to to be able to perform and also eats a healthy vegan diet.
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And I echo pp. The media call her stunning so that people run to the comment section to say how fat she is.
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I dont really know much about her, Ive seen pictures of her and she looks phenomenal, like a force of nature, she is stunningly beautiful in my eyes
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But, you can bet your life that at some point in the future, when her joints and heart needs help, she will be losing weight, perhaps even join up with a weight loss provider, or have surgery or any number of things
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Its happened over the years with all big female performers (the males tend to stay fat)
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I think we still glorify underweight women more than overweight women.

If you look on TV you will see many more women who are underweight than you will see being a healthy weight or overweight.

I am glad that women are now being seen as we’re not a one size fits all.
We comes in all shapes and sizes including tall short, muscular, skinny and obese.

For too long women had to be skinny but still have big boobs and hips and so many women aren’t built like that, which is ok.

But I do worry we’re heading down a slippery slope.
I think there’s a difference between celebrating women regardless of their size vs glorifying being unhealthy.

Being morbidly obese is not something that people should be ashamed of but it shouldn’t be something that is glorified either, just like being dangerously underweight shouldn’t.

If a 'thin' person (what is that) said all that about nourishing and loving their body they would be accused of slyly fat shaming

This is always going to be a tough dilemma, as I imagine most people do not want to make obese people feel bad about themselves, and being confident in your own skin is so important.

But the facts are simple, being obese is not a good thing. It opens people up to numerous health issues, more prone to cancers and does have an impact on NHS services. So it has to be talked about, it has to be advertised that the UK needs to get thinner!

My sister was incredibly underweight, dangerously so. She started to put weight on in her late teens, and looked amazing but then just kept going and going and as her family it started to get quite distressing to see. Her health issues multiplied, she was in constant pain, developed all kinds of medical conditions that could have been solved by losing weight. But she liked her body, she enjoyed eating vast amounts of unhealthy food. It made her happy. Ultimately she died suddenly from a cancer we know is more likely to happen in people with a high fat content diet.

We don't need to vilify the obese, but we also shouldn't ignore the very real implications.

I think it’s a really difficult balance to get right. Obviously obese people shouldn’t be seen as disgusting and should be ‘allowed’ to feel beautiful and confident. A person’s worth shouldn’t be measured by how much they weigh.

But it shouldn’t be seen as anymore aspirational than starving yourself (and being as thin as possible was celebrated for far too long). Both are dangerous to your health.

I don’t think anyone is looking at obese influencers and deciding to put on weight though… are they?

Can anyone link to any examples of glorifying obesity?

If Lizzo is the pinnacle of this debate then I don’t understand why it’s seen as glorifying.

I think there is good evidence of this ‘social contagion’ of obesity. It’s not all environmental causes.

I very much doubt anyone is obese by choice. So much comes onto play here, childhood, education, poverty, cycles, psychological issues with food, mass marketing of processed food, readily available healthy food, the abundance of junk food.....
People who say that someone is obese by choice or that they love it, are wrong, no one chooses itBut the first step to all of the above problems is self love and respect. Representation in the media of overweight people simply mean over weight people exist and also deserve nice clothes, period products and yes cake too.