First there was the sin of fat shaming. That was followed by the “big-boned” is beautiful campaign featuring plus-size model Anna O’Brien in a too-skimpy bikini.
Now political correctness has jumped the shark. The January 1 issue of Cosmopolitan UK has published a profile of 11 women “who prove wellness isn’t ‘one size fits all.'” Not all of them are morbidly obese, which begs the question of why any are.
The overarching premise of the feature — that healthy can be a loaded word — is a fiction. Whether the obese and overweight women in the feature are limber, as many of them are, and/or have come to terms with their disease is entirely beside the point. There is no such thing as healthful obesity. According to the National Institutes of Health, obesity and overweight together are the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States. These lifestyle diseased claim an estimated 300,000 lives per year.
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Worse yet, obesity is regarded by health professionals as a “silent killer” insofar as “many years may elapse before its damage is fully evident. Excess weight, particularly its distribution around the midsection (i.e. ‘pot belly’), is a sure sign of insulin resistance – the stage immediately preceding the development of diabetes. The higher blood glucose rises, usually in response to the glycemic index of the foods we consume, the more ‘visceral’ fat is stored in the mid-abdomen.”
What’s more is the timing of the article. Spreading the message that “wellness isn’t ‘one size fits all'” in the midst of a global pandemic that feeds on underlying health conditions like obesity and overweight is remarkably reckless.