For the most part, I’ve only passively observed the body positivity/fat acceptance movement until I had an interesting conversation with a health food manufacturer about how there is reportedly a 7 percent decrease in obese people’s desire to lose weight, mostly because there’s more public acceptance of the condition. Sounds good, right? But…what if there’s a more nefarious reason morbid obesity is being packaged as body acceptance? What it big junk food companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi or Nestle are fueling fat acceptance because they’re tired of losing market share to food companies who offer healthier options?

Think about it. When overweight people were dissatisfied with their weight and reported a desire to drop the pounds, the very food companies responsible for providing the junk turned around and offered us “diet junk.” But after a decade or so, the truth was revealed–the “diet junk” was worse than the actual junk. The notion of “better living through chemistry” was clogging our arteries, shooting our blood pressure through the roof, giving us diabetes, heart disease and strokes. We now know how bad refined, processes sugar is, and the fake stuff they gave us to substitute for the addiction they facilitated is much worse. All that gluten is bad too, but the substitutes can raise your blood sugar to rocket levels too, and those sharp highs and lows contribute to that barrel of a belly you can’t ever seem to flatten.

From the article:

Another possible cause for the lax perception of body weight is the increased social acceptability. With obesity becoming the norm, many feel less pressure to lose weight, Zhang noted.

One theory is that body acceptance trends on social media may have been wrongfully interpreted by a large number of people, who found a sense of comfort in their body image and chose the easy path toward better self-esteem.

While body acceptance advocates do promote body positivity, they do not however promote obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, the idea is that embracing who you are should be the cornerstone of a personal improvement plan, by applying a positive attitude toward your body to get better results.

– See more at: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/200696/20170308/why-americans-stopped-dieting-study-shows-drop-in-weight-loss-interest.htm#sthash.IVp1Xnv9.dpuf

So if people are getting off the junk food/diet junk food hamster wheel and a desire for temporary, fade diets are waning, why keep pushing the idea that a slim figure is ideal? Why not just encourage people to eat their McDonald’s triple Big Mac, 2 liter Coke and extra, extra large fries free of shame? It certainly would make the makers of said disgusting food very happy, now wouldn’t it?

Now don’t get me wrong–I’m all for people embracing the bodies God gave them. Not everyone is going to be an Instagram model with a 20-inch waist. I’m all for people not feeling pressure to remove their ribs so they can have a smaller waist, adding silicon in their breasts and butt so they can look like Jessica Rabbit. But is it really “loving your body” if you cram it with trash? Is it really an act of love to poison your liver, enlarge your heart, and wrap your organs with cancer-causing subcutaneous fat? I’m thinking that’s a big, fat NO.