The Body Positivity Movement and Social Attitudes

Illustration of obesity and waist circumference. From left to right, as labeled in the original image, the “healthy” man has a 33 inch (84 cm) waist, the “overweight” man a 45 inch (114 cm) waist, and the “obese” man a 60 inch (152cm) waist. The graphic is based on information from Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2000).

You have seen a supermodel who is obese on the cover of Cosmos. That was Tess Holliday. She is morbidly obese, and a role model to others with severe obesity. She is a leader in the body positivity movement that claims we all can be beautiful, and healthy, at any size. To be brutal, she might be. There is a small percentage of overweight and obese people who are metabolically normal, for the moment.

The body positivity movement raised some serious issues stemming from our attitudes towards fat people lead to job discrimination. It also is a cause for substandard medical care. In other words, there is an implicit bias against big people. Why? The social belief is that big people lack willpower, and are lazy.

If the movement stopped at this point, I would have no problem with it. These women, and it’s mostly women, encourage people to remain big. They shun those who try to lose weight when inevitably the metabolic issues rear their ugly head. In fact, even Holliday has her issues with the community, especially now that she told the world she had anorexia nervosa. Spoiler alert, she meets not one of the major markers of the disease in the DSMV. However, I have no doubt she could suffer from an eating disorder. Whether this is simple disordered eating, binge eating or secret eating, these are common in overweight and obese people. This is…