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'Healthy at Any Size' Influencers Are Literally Dying
Hot Air ^ | December 19, 2023 | DAVID STROM

Posted on 12/19/2023 11:08:06 AM PST by Red Badger

The Daily Mail has an article that should make you both sad and angry.

Sad, because, of course, almost anybody dying before their time is sad; angry because there is an ideologically-driven push to convince Westerners that striving to reach a healthy weight is “fatphobic.”

Eating disorders are rampant in the West, and when you add the unhealthy foods that our “food science” and marketing geniuses push on us, the result is an explosion in obesity. Not too long ago, anorexia was the problem du jour in the United States, and it still exists and needs to be taken seriously, but the most prevalent eating disorders in the West today are those tied to bad diets that make people extremely fat.

There is a movement that pushes hard to increase fat acceptance, and it has invaded every aspect of our culture. At base, the argument is simple: our culture and our healthcare industry have been captured by an ideology of fatphobia that tries to convince people that being thin and fit is superior to being obese, and that ideology is based on a pernicious lie.

This is, of course, totally absurd.

No doubt it is true that people can be horribly mean to people for being fat, and horribly mean people are despicable. But the problem in such cases is the nastiness, not the prejudice, behind this particular variety. Being nasty is wrong, but being obese is objectively unhealthy. And while people have varying propensities to become obese, being obese is linked to choices and behavior.

In other words, it sucks to be fat, it sucks to be more likely than others to become fat, and some people are blessed with a greater tendency toward healthy weights and a love of activities that are healthy that others don’t share. Such is life. We all have burdens and advantages, and we must deal with them to live long and prosper. Bitching about it doesn’t help.

One of my favorite follows on Twitter is Dave Danna, who has been on a weight loss journey. He is relentlessly upbeat, and it is fun to watch him drop the weight and see how many people are cheering him on. People love him because he always smiles–I have yet to see anybody make fun of him for being obese because everybody wants him to succeed.

He’s lost well over 100 pounds in the past year and, in that time, has been followed by over 75,000 people, all cheering him on. I would be willing to bet that almost none of them would cheer on the obese people who revel in their obesity. Dave knows he wasn’t “healthy at any size,” and he is doing something about it.

Fat influencers are now dropping like flies, being taken far too young because they have become immersed in the “healthy at any size” ideology.

Instead of following Dave Danna’s lead, they have instead become activists pushing back against “fatphobia.”

Branded Health At Every Size, or HAES, the philosophy has, at its heart, laudable goals. It aims to counter the multi-billion-dollar diet industry – which has a poor record when it comes to long-term, sustainable weight loss – and act as an antidote to the stigma encountered by people struggling with their weight.

The idea is that, rather than shame overweight people and force them to diet, they should be encouraged to embrace their bodies, find exercises they enjoy and eat more nutritionally. But some say those philosophies have been taken to extremes, particularly on social media, by celebrating morbid obesity while ignoring its serious health dangers.

The US edition of Cosmopolitan magazine was criticised for running covers featuring plus-size women in yoga poses under the headline: ‘This is healthy.’ As part of a drive to challenge beauty stereotypes, it also featured US plus-size model Tess Holliday – who at 5ft 3in and 300lb has a BMI of 53, more than double the healthy range – a decision condemned ‘as dangerous and misguided’.

Tess Holliday is one of the more pernicious media influencers in this genre, luring people into a lifestyle that will kill them far too young.

Yet, as bad as the “healthy at any size” influencers are, it is the intersectional ideologists who embrace fat activism and promote it that are the real villains. Fat activists, after all, are at least trying to justify to themselves their lifestyle; Cosmo, not so much. They just hopped onto an ideological trend for money or to virtue signal.

That people will wind up dying young is of no concern to them, apparently.

The truth of the matter is that being obese is bad for you.

A well-known activist, professor of ‘fat studies’ Dr Cat Pausé, who questioned the links between weight and health, lost her life aged 42. Based at Massey University in New Zealand, she also presented a ‘fat positive’ radio show.

She had said: ‘The science isn’t quite as clear cut as we’d like to believe and there’s not really quite a consensus yet about the relationship between weight and health.

‘Obese people, and even morbidly obese people, have just as good health or better health than someone in the normal weight range.’ She died in March 2022 from causes which have not been made public.

Obesity researcher Sarah Le Brocq, founder of charity All About Obesity, says that ignoring the health implications of excess fat is delusional.

‘People are always going to be different shapes and sizes,’ she says. ‘That’s OK, and we need to be more accepting of that, but you must be mindful of the health implications.

What we know is the more body fat you have, the more likely it is your body will be in an inflamed state. This means you might become insulin resistant and develop diabetes or end up with heart problems.

We all know this, and one major reason that people react negatively to morbid obesity is that we instinctively know that it is really unhealthy. If you can’t get up without getting out of breath or tie your shoes without being horribly contorted, it is time to do something.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough how wrong it is to make fun of others’ weight. But it isn’t wrong to challenge a “fat activist” when they make absurd claims about being the picture of health and criticizing people encouraging others to get or remain fat is an act of kindness to anybody who might get taken in.

It is a matter of life and death.


TOPICS: Food; Health/Medicine; History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS:
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1 posted on 12/19/2023 11:08:06 AM PST by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

Literally.


2 posted on 12/19/2023 11:09:31 AM PST by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: Red Badger

Because they aren’t obviously.

Everything is beyond parody these days...


3 posted on 12/19/2023 11:10:24 AM PST by bigbob
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To: Red Badger

All Liberal Media have learned to believe in lies.

ESPECIALLY since the Lying Kenyan showed up on the national scene.

They ALL had to lie to cover for him 24/7.

Look at how much Joe Biden lies directly to the cameras if he even speaks.

Every single day. Lies.

Every single day.


4 posted on 12/19/2023 11:13:58 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Red Badger

This, combined with the jab, which I’m sure most of these people have had!


5 posted on 12/19/2023 11:15:18 AM PST by albie
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To: Fido969

Indeed.


6 posted on 12/19/2023 11:17:26 AM PST by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Red Badger
Next: someone dying of a heart attack while filming a dancing Jardiance diabetes commercial.

-PJ

7 posted on 12/19/2023 11:21:14 AM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Red Badger

But some airlines fell for this and gives multiple seats on request.


8 posted on 12/19/2023 11:22:17 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Red Badger

The picture says she fought against fatphobia.

Wherever she is now, does she feel like she won?


9 posted on 12/19/2023 11:22:40 AM PST by simpson96
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To: Political Junkie Too

I hate that commercial!

It’s sooooo stupid and annoying!...................


10 posted on 12/19/2023 11:22:53 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while l aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
Well Susan Sarandon would all be against "fat shaming",


11 posted on 12/19/2023 11:23:07 AM PST by DallasBiff (Apology not accepted.la is not the sharpest knife in the drawer)
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To: Political Junkie Too

I hate that commercial.


12 posted on 12/19/2023 11:28:22 AM PST by Melinda in TN
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To: Red Badger

Fatphobic? No, we don’t FEAR the fat. Many of us may react to them with pity, disgust, or dismiss them out of hand, but they don’t scare us.


13 posted on 12/19/2023 11:54:31 AM PST by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH!)
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To: Political Junkie Too

If that’s the commercial I’m thinking of, then every time I see it a just shake my head in disbelief wondering why that obese woman doesn’t just lose about 80 to 100 pounds and ditch the pharmaceuticals.

Apparently, people are more willing to eat themselves to death and then give most of their income on big pharma and the medical community rather than, you know, put in the effort to lose the weight and be healthy all by yourself.

Amazing.


14 posted on 12/19/2023 11:55:37 AM PST by Obadiah
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To: Political Junkie Too

...”a dancing Jardiance diabetes commercial.”

More employment opportunities for fat dancers.


15 posted on 12/19/2023 11:57:11 AM PST by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH!)
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To: Red Badger

Objectively anything is irrelevant these days.


16 posted on 12/19/2023 12:00:10 PM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.)
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To: DallasBiff

Sorry, I’ll take a fat woman over that nasty, leftist, totalitarian Beeyotch!


17 posted on 12/19/2023 12:14:30 PM PST by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: Red Badger

fat people are dying? When did this start?


18 posted on 12/19/2023 12:40:06 PM PST by Jonny7797
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To: Red Badger

That is not healthy! That is morbidly obese!

19 posted on 12/19/2023 12:46:35 PM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized of man on)
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To: Red Badger
Spanish actress Itziar Castro, who fought against fatphobia, dies aged 46:


Cosmopolitan magazine was criticised for running covers featuring plus-size women... under the headline: ‘This is healthy.’ ... featured US plus-size model Tess Holliday – who at 5ft 3in and 300lb has a BMI of 53...


A well-known activist, professor of ‘fat studies’ Dr Cat Pausé...lost her life aged 42....she also presented a ‘fat positive’ radio show.


20 posted on 12/19/2023 12:46:42 PM PST by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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