Followers of obese influencers get furious when someone says “Obesity is not healthy,” but these same followers will call a thin woman unhealthy.
These deluded followers of very oversized influencers will chastise anyone who posts on the influencer’s Instagram account things such as, “You can’t be that fat and healthy.”
Raise your hand if you’ve been wondering how many of these followers are quick to pronounce a woman unhealthy just because she weighs 115 pounds.
How often have we heard plus-size women say things like, “She looks sickly thin; give her a steak,” or, “She’s scary skinny,” or, “She looks like a breeze could blow her away”?
Why is that acceptable, but saying, “Morbid obesity can’t be healthy,” is not?
A fat woman can be metabolically healthy. But having normal blood work does NOTHING to protect the knee joints or help protect the uterus and colon from cancer, nor keep the body agile and swift, nor preserve the ability to run up steps or run across a parking lot to escape from harm or assist someone in need.
Though being literally anorexic-thin — as in 78 pounds on a 5’4 frame – can cause problems such as infertility, brittle bones and heart arrhythmias, the “health at all sizes” camp has been known to brand women at 115 pounds, even 125 pounds, as any of the following:
“Unhealthy”
“Frail”
“Not enough meat on her bones”
“She looks hungry.”
“She has an eating disorder.”
“She’s on coke or meth.”
Why a Skinny Person Can Be Unhealthy
Smoking, high blood pressure and lack of exercise are killers. These three metrics are extremely prevalent in America. They are so prevalent that many thin people are affected.
The HAES (health at every size) mindset is quick to point out that thin people get heart attacks, heart disease and stroke.
What they won’t mention is that smoking, high blood pressure and lack of exercise are so hazardous to the human body, that ANY SIZE body will be adversely affected by these three metrics.
However, obesity itself is a huge risk factor or direct cause for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, some cancers, blood clots, complications from giving birth and degeneration of knee cartilage.
On the other hand, being 115 pounds on a 5’4 frame is NOT a risk factor or cause for any of these conditions.
In fact, this weight, or its correlates at shorter and taller heights, is not a risk factor for ANY medical ailment. If a woman this weight gets sick, the weight is a coincidence, not a causative factor.
In fact, the reason String Bean Steve or Stephanie the Stick developed high blood pressure and clogged arteries is because they’ve been smoking for 20 years, eating a diet high in processed foods and avoiding regular exercise. Their health problems were NOT caused by a slender frame.
Why don’t people get this difference?
“You’re not Her Doctor”
Followers of morbidly obese influencers will often post this in response to the comment of, “She can’t possibly be healthy at her size.”
Yes, the critics are not the 250 pound influencer’s doctor. BUT … it doesn’t take much education to know how gravity works.
It doesn’t require a medical degree to know what excess weight, over time, does to the knee joint, internal organs or the heart’s pumping efficacy.
It doesn’t require a medical degree to understand that obesity forces the heart to strain harder by making it pump blood through many more blood vessels created by obesity.
These fallouts can happen even while cholesterol and fasting blood sugar remain normal.
As for exercise forcing the heart to strain harder, this occurs ONLY DURING EXERCISE. Obesity strains the heart 24/7.
Though thin people can be unhealthy, the thinness in these cases is almost always incidental to their medical problems.
An example, as mentioned already, is when a skinny person smokes and develops problems caused by the smoking.
But when obese people have medical issues, they are almost always caused by or aggravated by the obesity.
When I was a personal trainer, my obese clients had far more difficulty than did non-overweight clients with any kind of aerobic activity or movement involving swift action on the floor.
Yes, I couldn’t see inside my obese clients’ coronary arteries, but I COULD see their difficulty walking up a staircase or getting to their feet from a seated position on the floor.
Followers of obese influencers can’t possibly believe that the skinny person with heart disease and a bad back wouldn’t be significantly worse off if that individual weighed 250 pounds. Or can they? Heaven help us if the answer is yes.
Another Startling Phenomenon
Morbidly obese influencers who preach fat liberation and refer to themselves as fat activists hate when they get comments to the tune of, “You can’t be healthy at such a heavy weight.”
They’re offended even when these declarations are posted on someone else’s account.
They insist, over and over, ‘You can’t tell a person’s health by their weight,” and, “Health is not determined by weight.”
However, every so often there’s that anomalous comment: “You look healthy.”
Yes, this type of comment has been posted to the accounts of morbidly obese influencers — and not out of sarcasm.
I could tell they really mean it based on a few other factors that I won’t go into here; just trust me: They mean it.
The really bizarre thing is that the influencer never provides pushback — even though the commenter has not spoken with the influencer’s doctor and can only pass their judgement based on the influencer’s physical appearance!
Furthermore, other followers, who get steaming mad when someone posts, “You can’t possibly be healthy,” never criticize those who say, “You look healthy and fit.”
Why is that? Why is it wrong to say one is unhealthy based on their size, but not wrong to say that one is healthy based on some element of their physical appearance?
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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