"Just because I'm overweight doesn't mean my opinion isn't valuable", "I bought three sandwiches in Mecca, let's see which one is the best", are some of the sentences of famous tiktokers and influencer, which are later, mainly because of the consequences overweight, deceased.
Pushing the boundaries between healthy promotion of diversity and glorification of risky, unhealthy behavior, the so-called "FatTalkers" faced a barrage of criticism, culminating in a video of a girl mentioning that four of them had died due to obesity.
Overeating is fatal
Tiktoker Brittany Sauers, the first in the mentioned video, died at the age of 28. Her latest videos show a degree of remorse for harming her own health.
Speaking through tears, she addressed her followers in her last video and said that she "ruined her life with food and overeating".
Often describing herself as a "virtual prisoner," Sauers battled type 2 diabetes in her late XNUMXs, as well as an infectious skin disease known as cellulitis.
Her last video, in which she addresses an audience of millions on Tik Tok, ended with her saying: "I want you to know that it's not worth it. Food is not worth your life.”
TikToker Taylor Lee Jun, better known as Waffler69, has gained millions of followers for his videos of himself trying out bizarre food combinations in large quantities, such as reindeer meat and canned ham from the 60s.
As his brother confirmed for foreign media, Li Yun died at the age of 33 due to a heart attack.
The day before the tragedy, he posted a video of himself eating a giant bowl of fruit soaked in milk.
Victims of the HAES philosophy
The philosophical view of medicine, seen by many as a revolutionary defiance of beauty standards that equate thin with healthy, has gone too far.
HAES, short for the slogan Health At Every Size, is a public health framework that emphasizes that all bodies can be healthy, regardless of size, and reduces stigma against people who are overweight.
The idea is that instead of shaming overweight people and forcing them to diet, they should be encouraged to accept their bodies, find exercise they enjoy and eat more nutritiously.
But some say those ideas have been taken to extremes, especially on social media, celebrating crippling obesity while ignoring serious health risks.
Obesity is healthy
The American edition of Cosmopolitan magazine has been criticized for featuring plus-size models in yoga poses on their covers under the headline: "This is healthy."
As part of an effort to combat beauty stereotypes, it also features American plus-size model Tess Holliday - who has a body mass index of over 53, twice the healthy range.
Self-styled "fat activists," meanwhile, not only promote larger bodies as healthy, but reject decades of science proving the dangers of excess body fat, encouraging devotees to ignore doctors who advise them to lose weight.
Renowned activist, "fat studies" professor Dr. Kat Pause, who questioned the links between weight and health, has died aged just 42.
She worked at Massey University in New Zealand and also hosted a "fat positive" radio show.
We must not forget about the consequences
Critics of the body positivity movement express their concern that there is a promotion of "toxic positivity", that is, the expectation that we must always be positive regardless of everything, including the harmful effects of obesity on health.
"I believe that body positivity is a good thing, but also that this concept no longer exists in its initial form," nutritionist Aleksandar Matić told Vreme earlier.
"This movement is designed to promote diversity and self-acceptance. This means not only accepting different body sizes, but also different deformities, burns and similar specificities. However, over time, there has been a great misuse of the term and the narrative that people of any body weight are healthy," he explains.
One should, he says, be aware of the potential health risks that obesity carries - greater stress on the joints, greater risk of cardiovascular diseases, elevated cholesterol, and even certain forms of cancer.
