Woke Body Positive and Anti-Diet Movements Normalizing Obesity
“Fat is fine” is the new mantra of those who want fat people to be accepted in spite of how they look and despite health problems associated with obesity. “Body positivity” is defined as “a movement where people whose bodies may not be seen as acceptable by society feel good about themselves and their looks.” The body positive movement, along with a related “anti-diet” movement and “health at every size,” are normalizing fat, which is discouraging people from losing weight or getting fit. The New York Times decried social media, such as Instagram, where influencers are pushing the notion that boys should be muscular or girls should be slim.
Obesity in the US has reached epidemic proportions, affecting 34% of adults and 15-20% of children, according to data from the National Institute of Health (NIH). Additionally, 17% of children and 68% of adults qualify as overweight, marking the first step toward obesity.
America leads the world not only in terms of obesity rates but also in athletic people, fat foods, and diet foods. So, food manufacturers, weight loss companies, and fitness equipment manufacturers can make money whether people lose weight or not. The food companies can even make people fat and then sell them the cure.
Even the standards of research are being changed. WebMD stated, “Obesity and its related diseases claim many lives each year. The annual figure was initially estimated at 400,000, but was recently revised to 112,000, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.” It seems a bit odd that established research needed such a broad adjustment. Additionally, if roughly 51% of the population is obese, then there are over 173 million obese people in America. If only 112,000 of them die of obesity, it doesn’t seem like as much of a threat. And this is consistent with findings of a study cited by WebMD: “One thing that came as a huge surprise was that the study found no increased risk of death for overweight people.”
At the same time that articles are telling people that they can be fat and healthy, and WebMD claims that fat people do not run a higher risk of death, the University of Chicago Medicine reports that “Thirteen types of cancer and 200 other health conditions are related to obesity.”
It seems counterintuitive that being fat is healthy, and it is a bit suspicious that the World Health Organization(WHO) and the United States NIH both declared obesity an epidemic, but WebMD and other sources are claiming that there is little or no connection between fat and poor health. The recent rise of “wokeism” has also infiltrated the obesity issue, using the term “fat shaming.” According to The Washington Post, doctors can be guilty of fat shaming, and “fatphobia persists in medicine.”
This bizarre movement of not being able to say things that are true but offensive is at such an extreme that a morbidly obese fashion model named Tess Holliday, who weighs 260 pounds and wears a size 22, told the media that she identifies as anorexic. The news story was edited on YouTube because the word “anorexic” cannot pass the censors. Now, we aren’t even allowed to say the names of health problems or identify them as health problems.
A quick Google search reveals any number of articles with titles like “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Junk Food‘” and “Why There’s No Such Thing as ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ Foods.” There have been allegations that fast food companies have been funding researchers and influencers to promote the anti-diet and body-positive image.
It is well-documented that fifty years ago, sugar companies paid researchers to promote the notion that dietary fat, not sugar, was the cause of obesity and ill health. More recently, The Washington Post reported that General Mills, the company which makes Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereals, has been pushing the anti-diet movement. The company sponsored a campaign citing anti-diet research and condemning “food shaming.” They offered giveaways and sponsorship to registered dietitians who tagged their cereal endorsements with the hashtag #DerailTheShame. General Mills went so far as to pay lobbyists to influence federal policies to keep health information off food labels.
The profit incentive of fast-food companies, combined with the rejection of reality often associated with the “Woke” movement and the notion that no one should ever be held accountable for their actions, is contributing to the demise of an entire generation by encouraging them to be overweight.
Often, analogies are made between smoking and obesity. The cigarette companies tried to push scientific studies that claimed cigarettes did not cause cancer. Fortunately, the government was not convinced and launched anti-smoking campaigns, stressing the health threat of smoking, eventually leading to a reduction in the percentage of adults who smoked. In 1965, 42% of adults smoked. In 2021, it was only 11.5%.
By pushing a narrative that fat is healthy, the exact opposite is going to happen. The percentage of obese Americans will increase. Fortunately, the fast food companies can fund new research, adjusting the statistics to reduce the number of deaths.
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