Body shaming, and "My Big Fat Fabulous Life"

[CapnAwesome]

Obesity is not always attributed to lifestyle choices or lack of will, although that seems to be the easy answer. Underlying medical conditions, hormonal imbalances, psychological stress/depression, past sexual trauma, immobility from physical injury, addiction and any number of issues come into play.

Why should a show about a fat person bother people so much? There had to have been reprehensible, irresponsible, television shows before this one, right? Why does this particular show, surrounding this particular person, with this particular condition cause such outrage? It makes me wonder.

I hate this sort of answer. Although the woman in that show has a condition, the vast vast vast majority of overweight people do not. Stress and depression could cause someone to overeat, but it's the eating that causes the weight gain. For 95% of people, the only reason you are obese is because you consume more calories than you burn. It's offensively anti-science and against the evidence to claim otherwise. Same goes with the old excuse of metabolism, which varies only slightly in the giant majority of the population. I think it's that excuse making and the bullshit that bothers me more than the sight of fat people, which I really don't care one way or another about.

Imagine for a moment it was a show glorifying smoking. How would you feel about that?