They insist they don’t promote obesity because they never say “Get fat” or “Gain 100 pounds.”
True, but they still blatantly promote obesity.
There’s a huge difference between claiming confidence despite one’s size, and the outright celebration of being significantly overweight – even 250 pounds overweight.
Over the past 10 years or so, the promotion of obesity, including morbid, has gained quite the traction on Instagram and especially TikTok.
Hiring plus-size models to work runways isn’t obesity promotion.
And when casting agents hire overweight women to be in commercials for products unrelated to weight loss, that’s not obesity promotion, either.
Just what, then, is obesity promotion?
A woman need NOT post captions telling women to “get fat” or “put on 150 pounds” in order to be guilty of celebrating being dangerously overweight.
Influencers who celebrate their unhealthy lifestyle use other tactics to do so.
But oddly, very few will actually admit to overtly endorsing obesity.
So just how do they endorse being fat?
#1. Flaunting Excessive Fat While Hardly Wearing Anything
This may be the No. 1 way that “fat activists” campaign for obesity, including severe.
When a woman, who clearly is at least a hundred pounds overweight, posts close-up videos of herself grabbing and kneading at significant belly rolls, this can’t be anything other than promoting obesity.
This is especially true if the accompanying caption suggests that it’s perfectly okay to be fat, or that “fat people can be sexy.”
In these TikTok videos (and sometimes Instagram) she may also be moving in a way that exaggerates the belly rolls and back fat.
Sometimes a fat acceptance influencer will move right up to the camera lens to zoom in on a markedly fat area of her body.
In summary, the “flauntation” of her body’s fattest areas is what’s very obviously going on in these videos or images.
This is them literally showing off their obesity, rather than displaying confidence.
We must not equate these kinds of posts with a healthy body image or self-confidence. They are not.
An image showing high self-regard would be that of a 250 pound woman standing atop the mountain she just hiked, with panoramic glorious scenery giving context to how high up she is.
A display of body confidence might also be a video of a 300 pound woman kicking ass with weights in a gym.
But standing in one’s living room or unkempt bedroom wearing a bikini that’s too tight, and lewdly moving about while grabbing and caressing at one’s belly fat?
That’s not confidence. That’s not high self-esteem. I’ll explain what it really is in a moment.
#2. Holding Signs or Posting Captions Endorsing Obesity
Fat acceptance influencers who choose this method may be fully clothed or almost naked.
Amanda Martinez Beck outright celebrates weighing at least 300 pounds – as evidenced by the handwritten signs she shows on Instagram.
This may be misinterpreted as body confidence or “peace with one’s body.” But let’s flip it: What if it were a thin woman with a sign saying, “It’s okay to be thin!”? She’d be vilified by the fat acceptance community for promoting restrictive eating disorders.
She, like many obesity promoting influencers, have terms in their bio such as fat liberationist and fat activist.
Marissa Matthews, who visibly is morbidly obese, has a TikTok account chock-full of videos of herself in a too-small string bikini, brandishing her massive size.
This is usually accompanied by caressing and pulling at her belly fat.
Despite these displays, she frequently denies glorifying obesity. Her most common mantra is, “For the MILLIONTH time, existing in a fat body doesn’t mean promoting obesity!”
Yet check out her TikTok bio below. If this isn’t an obesity-promoting account, then what is?
Also, her messages of “Existing…” are always accompanied by videos of herself parading about with barely any clothes on, tugging at her rolls.
This behavior is a lot more than merely “existing.”
They shake, jiggle and prance around with hardly any clothes on, squeezing and rubbing areas of their body with enormous amounts of fatty tissue.
This video doesn’t exemplify confidence or body love. It’s vulgar and tasteless while it promotes harmful visceral fat. In an attempt to cope with her morbid obesity, this influencer is in massive denial of its dangers and behaves this way to trick herself into believing it’s perfectly okay to have significant fat around vital organs including the heart.
These behaviors go way beyond “existing.” They are actions to celebrate being at an unhealthy size.
We’re not talking women who are 30 or 40 pounds overweight.
These influencers, who spread medical misinformation to cope with their obesity, often appear to be over 300 pounds.
#3. Declaring Intentional Weight Loss As “Fatphobic”
Here yet is another searing example of how fat liberationists glorify obesity.
To call all gyms “fatphobic,” and to accuse women who want to be smaller as “fatphobic,” is actually the encouragement of obesity.
Fat liberationists, through their TikTok and Instagram platforms, condemn intentional weight loss efforts in any woman and even label women who exercise as fatphobic.
So even though they don’t actually say, “You should get fat,” they DO strongly send the message of staying fat if you’re already fat.
It’s no secret that in Facebook groups for fat positivity, or whatever you wish to call it, overweight women have been vilified for announcing a plan to lose weight – even if it’s for health reasons.
I’ve read of cases in which such women were banned from the group, all because they described their own desire to lose weight and kept the narrative 100% about themselves. Yet they were ostracized.
The encouragement to remain fat comes on quite thick and is a form of obesity promotion.
It’s Not Body Confidence; It’s the Seeking of Validation
A truly confident, mentally healthy woman wouldn’t need to repeatedly post herself tastelessly grabbing at the rolls on her belly or shaking her belly into a camera.
Ask yourself if a woman who’s brimming with high self-worth would be compelled to behave this way.
Promotion of fatness helps very heavy women feel less guilty about the lifestyle choices that led to their size.
This isn’t confidence. This is an attempt to accept one’s unhealthy lifestyle choices as their permanent fate — disguised as “confidence.” Furthermore, if this account was of a thin woman and the caption read, “Unapologetically skinny,” she’d be accused of promoting thinness. The pendulum swings both ways.
When they lasso in thousands of like-sized women to share their fat liberation agenda, this makes them feel less sorrowful about their failure to take charge of their bodies.
Nobody gets to morbid obesity without a binge or compulsive overeating disorder.
This needs to be remedied, and if it takes repeated efforts, then that’s what it must take. But to deny medical science and insist that even at 400 pounds, one can still be healthy, is just insanity.
Promotion of Dignity and Respect, or Actual Obesity?
It’s difficult to feel respect for someone who posts lewd, sexually provocative videos of themselves almost naked in their attempt to garner respect for all body sizes.
There are classier, more tasteful ways to encourage people to see past the large size and judge individuals on their character rather than their girth.
Keep in mind that some fat activists don’t rely upon lustful, vulgar content to sway the masses into having a more positive attitude towards very big people.
However, they are still sending out the message, loud and clear, that fat individuals should stay fat, and that any attempts to lose weight – even to eliminate joint pain or improve mobility and heart health – means this thing called “internalized fatphobia.”
In fact, the very concept of “internalized fatphobia” is code for: “Even if you’re morbidly obese, you should stay that way.”
There is no other way to interpret this than as the downright promotion of obesity.
Staying Fat Should Not Be Encouraged Any More than Should Staying an Alcoholic or a Smoker
Morbid obesity, (BMI of 40 or higher, or at least 100 pounds overweight) is primarily caused by overeating, particularly in combination with a lack of physical activity.
A significant load of research has shown that excessive caloric intake, particularly from highly processed and calorie-dense foods, is the biggest driver of obesity.
The Centers for Disease Control (2021) reports that obesity is chiefly caused by excessive consumption of high sugar, high fat foods, leading to storage of excessive, unburned calories.
Overeating is often influenced by environmental and behavioral factors, abundant food availability, extra-large portion sizes and mental stress (Mihalopoulos et al., Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2018).
Genetic factors may predispose some people to overeating behaviors (such as the extremely rare genetic condition of Prader-Willi syndrome).
But lifestyle choices remain the dominant contributor to morbid obesity (Swinburn et al., The Lancet, 2011).
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness, where she was also a group fitness instructor, she trained clients of all ages and abilities for fat loss and maintaining it, muscle and strength building, fitness, and improved cardiovascular and overall health.
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