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A few days ago, what I call the "Outrage Brigade" descended on Jillian Michaels for suggesting that people should celebrate Lizzo’s music and not her body given the robust links between obesity and a broad range of health risks. A quick search on Google Scholar will confirm the unequivocal veracity of the obesity-health risk association.
The ire is a perfect manifestation of the current zeitgeist wherein avoiding hurting someone’s feelings carries much more weight than facts. I discuss this point in my forthcoming book tentatively titled, The Parasitic Mind: How Idea Pathogens Are Killing Common Sense—And What We Can Do About It.
Michaels’ candor was viewed as a frontal attack on the body positivity message as well as a form of fat-shaming. In my view, this is an unfortunate, if not inaccurate take.
I happen to be overweight. Various physicians have repeatedly advised me over the past two decades that it would be best if I were to lose some weight. I did not interpret this as fat-shaming nor an attack on my personhood. Rather, all other things equal, as a functioning adult who lives in the real world, I recognize that being overweight is likely worse for one's health than being the actuarially mandated weight. No one should discriminate against you simply because you are overweight. No one should demean you for being overweight. This appeal for kindness is grossly different from merely making the observation that people need not “celebrate your obesity” or simply proclaiming that it is unhealthy to be obese (as was the case with Michaels).
Back in 2009, I published a Psychology Today article titled "Katie Holmes is Taller than Tom Cruise: This Proves that Men Are Not Taller than Women…No It Doesn’t!" This is a classic cognitive bias that people are prone to succumb to. They falsely believe that a singular exemplar falsifies a finding that is unequivocally veridical at the aggregate (population) level. Men are, on average, taller than women even though your aunt Charlotte is taller than your uncle Roscoe. Similarly, that you know of an obese man who is very healthy and who is alive at the age of 85, or that you know of a very thin woman who contracted Type II diabetes, does not invalidate the obesity-health risk link that has been observed at the population level.
Mature and emotionally resilient adults do not hide from basic realities as a means of protecting their egos and/or those of their loved ones. I expect my wife and/or my physician to respect me, and, as I see it, part of that respect is for them to recommend that I lose weight if need be.
My best advice is for people to refrain from being faux-offended by proxy (in this case, on behalf of Lizzo). There is nothing virtuous nor honorable in denying a basic medical truth. Part of being a caring and loving person is to be truthful and especially so when it involves one’s likely health trajectory.
