People used to see those and aspire to be like them and improve themselves. Something changed over the last decade or more, and now no one wants to do any better than they currently are. They are despairing in content with themselves.
People still aspire to be attractive they just don't feel the same social pressure to chase it that they used to. Personally I don't see the problem for the USA, if people are happy being unhealthy then let them be unhealthy. If this was Europe I could see a public cost argument but US businesses are already starting to charge more to people who are inconveniently obese so I don't see why it's a real concern.
They're not happy. They're suffering and helpless. That's the problem.
It's not about beauty standards, it's about healthy standards. Remember when there was a push-back from models being too thin? Everyone agreed that it was bad to show ultra-thin models because it was unhealthy and generally unobtainable. The same should be for overweight people, except now we have the concept of body-shaming (which didn't apply to ultra-thin models??). There needs to be more of a focus on self resposibility along with a push-back against the bad practices of the food industry.
So if that's the case, why does it matter what the Huffington Post says?
I'm not morbidly obese, so perhaps I've missed the pro-obesity PR. A fashion magazine might give a cover to an obese model once a year, but the other 11 months all seem to have the same rail thin models that have dominated since the '80s.
Same goes for TV and movies. Producers wouldn't hire a fat guy to play Mark David Chapman, it'd be an easier sell to get a fit actor and have him balloon up to that desired weight.
The only obese poeople of renown in our society are older politicians and the rich, i.e. people that do not care about meeting society's beauty standards.