America is suffering a severe, widespread and deadly epidemic. And no, I’m not talking about COVID-19. This epidemic is responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people annually at a minimum, and it actually compounds the effects of COVID-19, making you far more likely to die from the coronavirus if you are suffering from both. Twice as many people have been afflicted by this epidemic than the current COVID epidemic, yet it is rarely talked about. Around 14.5 million children are afflicted with this too, and, while we are constantly reminded by slimy, corrupt politicians to “think of the children,” they never seem to mention this epidemic. Of course, I’m talking about obesity.
The number of deaths relating to obesity I listed before is a conservative estimate, with the actual number believed to be much greater, with as many as 18% of all deaths annually likely being attributed on a root level to obesity. While the CDC does not list “obesity” as a direct cause of death (as being obese doesn’t just instantly make someone drop dead), the effects on one’s health brought about as a result of obesity are among the leading contributors to death in the United States. Of the ten leading causes of death in the U.S, seven of them are more likely to occur in obese people: heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases, nephrosis, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Of the remaining three, being obese makes catching two of them, influenza and COVID-19, far more deadly. For those curious, the remaining is unintentional accidents, which can happen to anyone.
The fact of the matter is, obesity is a serious problem. We know the leading contributor to death in this country, so we should all be united in our desire to fight back and eradicate this epidemic. Except no, that isn’t happening. In a hilarious irony, the same left wing that says the right is anti-science for its various stances regarding COVID (from the reasonable “no more lockdowns and no vaccine mandates” to the absurd “the vaccine was made by global elites and designed to kill you”) is also promoting the so-called “body positivity” movement and holding up obesity as a healthy lifestyle.
This movement is a microcosm of the larger societal problems in the United States as a whole, namely victim culture and the obsession surrounding it. It is fashionable to be part of an allegedly marginalized class in modern America. It gives you clout, special privileges and, most importantly, allows you to shirk any responsibility for your failures, as you can always blame someone else. Being overweight does not make you a victim. If anything, these activists are bullies, writhing with jealousy, bitterness and a victim mentality. When famed singer Adele lost over a hundred pounds, compliments regarding her accomplishment were called “fatphobic.” These people claim to be body positive, yet they don’t find thin or athletic bodies to be worthy of praise. They do the thing they purport to hate the most: discriminate against people with specific body types.
Much like their gluttonous eating habits, these so-called “fat activists” are also extremely greedy, demanding that society changes for them and have everyone else conform to their ways. All clothes should be made in absurdly large sizes, All chairs on planes, trains, and roller coasters should be much bigger to accommodate a 600-pound person. Everyone must be sexually attracted to overweight people or else they are a bigot. These activists will rewrite factual truths to push their agenda, like claiming that obesity isn’t a comorbidity when it comes to diseases like heart disease and COVID-19, among others, or that White “race scientists” invented fatphobia to discriminate against Africans. They claim that basic biological truths regarding healthy lifestyles are social constructs and that, somehow, “fear mongering” and “vilification” of fat people is what’s actually causing hundreds of thousands of obese people to suffer health problems and die every year. Oh, it gets better. These people are utterly delusional, claiming that being fat is a “marginalized identity like Black or queer.” Yes, the fat race has been oppressed and marginalized for so long. Remember when obese people were sold into chattel slavery, or when they were arrested en masse in undercover raids of “fat bars?” Of course not. These people live in a different reality from everyone else, and they are completely emblematic of the unbridgeable societal gap in this country.
None of this is to say that obese people are bad, immoral or less deserving of respect than anyone else. The one actually positive aspect of the body positivity movement is the idea that we treat all people with respect and dignity. At the end of the day, we are all human beings who have value, and we have the freedom to eat what we want and look how we desire: big, thin, muscular or anything in between. Healthy and smart choices should be encouraged, and the anti-scientific fantasy of being healthy at any size needs to be laughed out of the room as the pseudoscience it is. Encouraging people to be grossly overweight is actively killing people. It is not compassionate, it is not “woke,” it is not kindness. It is cruel, it is endangerment, and it is harmful.
Obesity is the biggest health risk facing our nation today, and by encouraging poor health choices in the name of inclusivity, the problem is only being exacerbated. When the physically fit are shamed and ostracized and the objectively unhealthy are lauded and praised, then it is clear that society has degraded severely. It isn’t “fat-shaming” or cruel to discourage obesity. It’s the opposite. I’ll conclude with this insight: we live in a world where hundreds of millions go hungry every day, even after struggling through hours of physical labor, as most humans have for our entire history. Now imagine the audacity of the immensely privileged few who can afford to loaf around all day, stuffing their face with cheap and easy calories, only to claim that they are helpless victims who are being oppressed, with no one having it as bad as them. This is the backward fantasy land these people are living in.
