It’s not ‘body shaming’ to refuse to glorify Lizzo’s unhealthy obesity

I didn’t feel good about it. The occasional nastiness about my weight I got from friends and some family members certainly didn’t help matters. But I knew it was more than just in my head. My obesity was not only unattractive but also unhealthy. Anyone who told me it was okay would have been doing me a disservice.

A desire to be healthy drove me to start eating better, take up sports, and shed most of my excess weight over the next few years. That was a decade ago — and it’s probably a good thing I did it then. In our current “woke” culture, even obesity is to be glorified. Had I faced my struggle today, I might have been told by someone that my overweight body was “beautiful” and “fierce.” Who knows if my health would ever have actually improved?

That’s what you’d surmise from this latest controversy Buzzfeed has stirred up with their interview of former Biggest Loser host and fitness guru Jillian Michaels. The interviewer asked Michaels, who literally hosted a show helping overweight people lose weight, a question basically saying, isn’t it great that the pop star Lizzo shows off her obese body and slays!!

In the least surprising answer ever, Michaels said, well … no.

“Why are we celebrating her body? Why does it matter? Why aren’t we celebrating her music? ‘Cause it isn’t gonna be awesome if she gets diabetes,” Michaels said. “I’m just being honest. I love her music, my kid loves her music, but there’s never a moment when I’m like, ‘I’m so glad she’s overweight.’ Why do I even care? Why is it my job to care about her weight?”

So yeah, Michaels refused to glorify obesity. For this apparent thought-crime, Michaels has been savaged by the woke online Left.

Lizzo is a talented singer. She is also obese — and not just a little bit — which makes her unhealthy. She absolutely does not deserve an ounce of shame or cruelty for her weight, but it is immoral to glorify such unhealthiness, especially amid a national obesity crisis, with obesity rates reaching 40%.

Thousands upon thousands of lives have been lost to heart disease and other obesity-related illnesses, which are probably the main driver behind most of our nation’s healthcare crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Obesity puts individuals at risk for many of the leading causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, some types of cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes and kidney disease. Obesity costs the U.S. about $147 billion in medical expenses each year.”

What next? Are we going to start praising people for smoking cigarettes?

It is not compassion, but cruelty, to pretend that obesity is perfectly fine, let alone worthy of celebration. Whether we like it or not, pop stars such as Lizzo are role models for millions of young people. When we pretend that their obesity is not a problem or bizarrely delude ourselves into saying it’s “beautiful,” it only encourages an entire generation of kids like me to grow up and never make the tough choices they need to make to be healthy.

And no, this is not about shaming Lizzo or making anyone feel bad about their body. That’s never called for, and it’s not productive. While standing her ground, Michaels made this clear in a tweet put out in response to the backlash. Here’s what she said:

She’s right. Internet lefties can insist all they want that fat is not unhealthy, but it is just one more anti-science lie. Michaels deserves credit, not condemnation, for refusing to bend at the altar of woke “body positivity” politics when people’s lives are on the line.