For Real National Health, Bring Back Fat-Shaming

For Real National Health, Bring Back Fat-Shaming
Stock image of a doctor measuring fat on a man's stomach. (Shutterstock)
Roger L. Simon
2/10/2022
Updated:
2/13/2022
Commentary
Now that even the tedious left is beginning the predictable COVID rollback, it’s time for at least a somewhat more balanced (pun intended) look at the second-most-important predictor of that disease, which is rarely mentioned but has always been known—weight.
When I say always known, I mean virtually from the outset. Here’s one study from May 2021: “Obese individuals may be at a greater risk of severe COVID-19 complications, according to a new report released by The World Obesity Federation.

“The report links obesity with a series of health complications related to COVID-19. It found that increased bodyweight ‘is the second greatest predictor of hospitalization and a high risk of death for people suffering from COVID-19.’

“Only age ranks as a higher risk factor.

“The report also found that in countries with higher rates of obesity, the rates of COVID-19 tended to increase.”

Know any particular countries with those higher rates…? Hmm…? If you’re in the USA reading this, you’re in one. So get off your derriere and go exercise (but please wait until you finish this article).

We hear little about weight in public, however, because of the “woke” left’s disdain for “fat-shaming” as a sin far worse than public defecation, judging from conditions in liberal San Francisco.

That has resulted in a virtual revolution in female modeling in print and on television, with women ranging from the plump to the seriously obese appearing frequently, almost obsessively, in advertising.

That’s fine up to a point, but the point goes beyond diminishing returns when it begins to encourage an unhealthy, even dangerous, lifestyle.

For reference, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has justifiably lost popularity of late, it does offer the frightening statistic that, as of 2017–2018, 73.6 percent of Americans were overweight or clinically obese.

Maybe it would have been better if you had a chubby friend worried about COVID, and instead of debating mask or no mask, or the shot versus ivermectin, you just said, “Let’s go for a run.”

One of the better initiatives of the Obama administration was when Michelle Obama tried to inspire healthy lunches in schools. She may have gone about it the wrong way, but the general idea was praiseworthy in a society where huge percentages of our youths are either sitting on those same derrieres playing computer games or glued to psychologically destructive social media, bags of Cheetos at ready.

What this has exacerbated is what we can only call our culture of maximum hypocrisy, especially from important political figures who use their positions to spout increasingly dubious medical advice, when they themselves are morbidly obese and living examples of exactly what not to do.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (yes, I am deliberately fat-shaming here) is a prime example of this hypocrisy, standing before us as the seeming eternal standard-bearer for mask-wearing well into the next millennium when one can only imagine what the jowly man looks like naked. The absurdity of his pontificating to us about health would be hilarious if it wasn’t actually tragic.

Talk about the culture of hypocrisy—what kind of message does Pritzker and others send to children about what their leaders should be as these politicians preach endlessly about health?

Okay, fat-shaming may be (again) a bit “mean-spirited.” But honesty is not. And lying and pretending something isn’t there is even more mean-spirited (to the public—and the individual ultimately) than fat-shaming.

At the same time, those who actually demonstrate their commitment to their health by their behavior should be praised. Former CIA Director and Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lost 90 pounds in six months. He set up his own home gym and went to work.

Who do you think America’s youth should emulate—Pritzker or Pompeo?

And who do you think is least likely to get a severe case of COVID-19 in any of its variants, present or future?

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, columnist for The Epoch Times. His latest book “American Refugees” can be ordered on Amazon. “Roger Simon is among the many refugees fleeing blue state neoliberalism, and he’s written the best account of our generation’s greatest migration.”—Tucker Carlson.
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