Guardian article

[AmythestBangle]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/aug/10/body-positivity-shrinking-girl-summer-everyone-getting-smaller-except-me?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I don't really know how I feel about this woman's article, but I find myself thinking that maybe she could have tried harder to stay on the medication, and if Wegovy didn't work for her because of side effects then maybe trying MJ. She seems to have given up very easily at the first hurdle and also not considered other ways she could have tried treating her anxiety. She says that she stopped the medication because of her kids, but she doesn't seem to have considered that at her size (by the photo anyway) she is certainly going to die when her children are young, so how is that benefitting them?

She says she is not being judgemental of people on the medication but the article is in my opinion permeated with judgement. The rise of "body positivity" was a way to help the mental health and self-esteem of obese people, and was all very well. Being obese and happy/positive is better than being obese and depressed. But now there are sure medical ways of not being an obese person. And being obese, especially as obese as she is, is an extreme heath risk and a disease in its own right. Not something to be celebrated if there are ways it can be succesfully treated, which one should be pursuing with all available tools given the extreme dangers.

Maybe I am being very mean. What do people think?

I made the mistake of posting about this article in AIBU and got the usual ‘WLI is for lazy people who won’t change their lifestyle’ bingo card.

I think it’s a disappointing article. It’s definitely judgemental, she talks about weight loss as a moral choice. She clearly suffers with her mental health, she said that herself, and it’s a shame she’s decided the only way to protect that is to stay obese - especially when she describes sobbing over people’s weight loss successes. That doesn’t sound okay to me. I have sympathy, but the article did irritate me.

Yes, it was particularly irksome when she said that what could have been achieved by staying on the meds was "a smaller body and what I assume would be an easier existence than one spent feeling the need to justify and defend myself all the time".

Not needing to "justify" yourself to other people is absolutely NOT the reason to go onto the medication, it should be done for yourself, and your kids. You would be much HEALTHIER, not just more socially acceptable, and THAT is the important part, not what others think. You would be likely to live longer and in greatly better health, for yourself and your children. She seems very fixated on what others think, and oblivious to or in denial of the extreme and certain dangers of her level of obesity. I just don't think she gets it.

Ridiculous woman ridiculous article.
It's not as if "body positivity" meant that obesity was suddenly healthy and that obese people were suddenly happy with it. Very few people are genuinely happy to be obese. Body positivity was only meant to stop them hating on themselves and other people being fattist.

She is unhappy being obese but has not been able to change that for the reasons we all know.

Along comes this bloody miraculous drug which provides the tools to be able to combat all those reasons. And she still isn't happy. In fact she seems to have stayed on it a very short time during which the drug worked and she lost significant weight.
AND STILL SHE MOANED.
And then she quit this life saving drug which was helping her.

Really , what is there to say about such a negative self sabotaging person who is filled with spite towards everyone who has grasped the chance that GLPs provide. Imagine being her husband and having to listen to her. ...

I definitely hated my body when I was obese. It was really shit looking back. I have hardly got any photos of me and dd for her first 12 years of life and even less of dh and I for pretty much 2 decades. I'm making up for lost time and thanking my body for being amazing and sticking with me all those years. It's hard to describe the impact mj has had without sounding like I'm in a cult and I'm incredibly grateful my prescriber offers long term maintenance. The idea of going backwards fills me with dread. Being at a healthy bmi feels so good!

Pointless article and I say it as a person who was very obese. She certainly has deep mental health issues. She has lots of body image issues and depression. I have a circle of very close friends, all obese since youth and none of us have body image problems. I also have friends with what you would call "society's perfect bodies" and have body issues, one to me looks like a Barbie already, naturally; however, she still then had whole body liposuction. Her body, her choice but I think body images may affect everyone regardless of your weight.

But the women in my the article is just whinging and whinging about not losing weight, not being celebrated by society but not doing much about it.

I thought it was an interesting article. She is correct in pointing out that lots of "body positive" celebs have (understandably) jumped at the chance of WLI when they became available. Suddenly the attitude towards Size/looks changes.

I initially felt sorry for her, but then (unkindly, I know) had the thought that her attitude is exactly what some people think all of us fat folk are like - weak-willed and a bit pathetic. Crying about being fat instead of doing something about it, whilst coming up with lots of excuses not to either deal with it or start learning to live with it. As others have observed, why not try a different WLI if Wegovy didn't suit? Body positivity, whilst helpful to a certain extent, really is just whistling in the dark - the vast majority of people know that being fat isn't good for you. Did she think that if enough people agreed with the body positivity view then it would suddenly make being fat ok? As if health is a democracy and if enough fat people say it's fine then it becomes so?

Someone I used to work with had the view that fat folk, such as I, are fat because we subconsciously want to avoid things or we can use it like a big rubber suit to keep things we don't like away from us. I wonder if the writer is subliminally panicked at the idea of losing her protective packaging? If so, surely this is a matter between her and a counsellor and not the fault of fat people who want to be slimmer.

As a fat person trying to be a healthier person, it all annoyed me quite a bit.

A deeply stupid piece which will probably influence many readers against WLI.
Also noted they managed to get a man in a dress into the photo of newly slim “celebrities”.
Never knowingly missing an opportunity to push the agenda.
The Guardian was my paper of choice most of my life but since Katherine Viner took over it is just a left wing Daily Mail.

I know the author a little bit (as in, personally rather than professionally or as a reader), and she has a habit of making just about every topic about herself and her exceptionalism ime. Everything is turned into an ishoo. We attended a postnatal group together and it was pretty torturous.

I was very frustrated by this article. I find it ridiculous that people feel celebrities ’owe’ them something - that they should make choices about their own health and body to please their followers.

I completely agree that I fell into the fat and positive camp, because frankly what else was I going to do? I am much happier as I lose weight but I am not doing it as part of some anti-fat zeitgeist intended to make others feel bad about themselves.

The author of this article does not come off the way I suspect she thought she would.

@JustGoClickLikeALightSwitch yes there does seem to be a lot of ishoos there. They sell articles.

She is only 37 and her obesity is inconvenient but not practically impacting her physical health day to day yet.

"Body positivity" won't help anyone when every year they get bigger and/or older and find their health deteriorating and steadily heading towards disability (or worse) due to obesity.

Everyone needs to make their own choices on their health, I just hope no one does it based on this article!

Exactly this!

Annoying “Mummy Martyr”

Basically she is an influencer who is on the wane. Poor me I am losing followers blah blah blah

I am glad that people also saw that in the article. Even without the health risks and certain early death related to that level of obesity (which she surely must know about really, despite being in denial and failing to mention physical health in the article at all) and just looking at the physical effects of severe obesity on your daily life, of course we are all in favour of non-discrimination against people with all kinds of physical disabilities and allowing them to feel positive and live a full life. But that doesn't mean that people who have conditions causing their disability which can now be treated to the extent that they are no longer disabled should reject that treatment and hang onto their disability because of the rise of non-discrimination against the disabled.

She needs mental health treatment alongside treatment for her morbid obesity (maybe she should look up the meaning of the word morbid) certainly. But rejecting treatment for a disease that is killing her is not something she should be putting out there as a positive choice, for her or anyone else.

I was not morbidly obese, but had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver. Now I have none of those. Yes its nice to take up less room on the plane and wear nice clothes, but the really important thing is my physical health. She just ignores the point of it all.

I wonder what her DH thinks about her active choice to die young?

Severe obesity reduces life by 6-13 years. So I think she will see her children grow up!

As an obese woman who doesn’t drink, smoke and is quite active, I do get sick of people looking at me as though I’m likely to keel over and die any minute.

Activity levels are important. If you can stay mobile you are doing a lot better than someone whose obesity has them on a mobility scooter and sofa bound. Speaking as someone who has a chronic illness and was sofa bound for a while.

Body Positivity is about loving the body you have. It isn’t saying your body is ideal, the one you want, what you aspire to. It’s about accepting what you have and looking after it, not feeling obliged to be ashamed and hide in a sack. It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t lose weight given the opportunity.

Who is your prescriber?

@daddysgirlnot I'm with Oushk. There's quite a few options now though. https://monj.co.uk/mounjaro-maintenance-pharmacies/

Thanks so much.

And that really comes across in the article. The first two paragraphs alone make her sound immensely hard work.

It's an annoying article. There is an interesting point in there somewhere about the endlessly shifting sands of fashion fads and arbitrary beauty standards for women but it's lost under a mountain of bitterness and self-pity.

I can’t get past a grown woman with children sobbing over Instagram like a tween whose favourite boy band has broken up! The whole tone of the article is very teenage ‘it’s soooo unfair’. Yep, I agree it’s not fair that some people are naturally slim and some of us have to really work on it. That’s life. But dressing up being an unhealthy weight as ‘body positivity’ is not going to stop you developing high blood pressure, or having a heart attack or being more susceptible to obesity-related cancers. That’s the hard truth. Being overweight is a health issue, not a fashion or influencer issue.

I think the author is really struggling with having the smoke-screen of ‘body positivity’ taken away, because it leaves her with fewer ways of avoiding the uncomfortable truth that being significantly overweight is unhealthy. As an adult you can choose to do something about it (hard) and improve your health, or you can retreat to a semi-childlike state (easy), sobbing over Insta and making it all about your hurt feelings.

All of the above said as someone on MJ, I hasten to add!

That's unfair. I tried WLI and the anxiety side effects was horrific, very severe. Literal waves of fear waking me from dead sleep and my heart racing at 140 BPM.

It wasn't trivial or something I could work through.

I agree with you op. I feel sorry for her, she seems to be torturing herself, sitting searching on line, then sobbing in her bedroom, and her husband repeatedly having to deal with it. It also feels slightly attention seeking to put her husband through that. Body acceptance also comes from within, not just external validation from other overweight people.

She also is confused, body positivity means loving and accepting the body you’re in, at that moment, it does not mean you cannot prefer or wish another body if it is achievable, that you can’t decide to undertake a health journey, that you want to be fat and wish to stay fat, and the two are not mutually exclusive as she thinks.

mental health issues on the drugs are complex and not rare, we see people who ultimately want the food more, the comfort and familiarity, the enjoyment, and so taking the drugs is very complicated for them, they don’t want to go without, because the food provides a comfort, enjoyment, a dopamine hit,a release that they can’t get elsewhere,

yes, she could have sought help for her anxiety, she could have managed her journey be it on micro dosing, therapy , etc but she has made a choice, and she needs to accept it is a choice she’s made and stop sobbing about it.

I didn't like the article but I think you are being a little mean/judgemental. Obesity shortens life by 3-10 years depending on severity, or 8-14 years for severe obesity so she is not choosing to die young.
But she is at risk from health and mobility issues as she gets older.