What's alarming is how quickly it has become not politically correct to suggest that anything about obesity is unhealthy or undesirable. I'm not saying to go around shaming fat people, but there's a reality to obesity that we all (at least in the United States) have been increasingly in denial about. It's a marker for disease. That doesn't mean that all obese people have a related pathology, but metabolic pathologies correspond with obesity enough that people should be concerned.

Part of the problem is that humans are short-sighted, and humans of modern technological society have an even shorter attention span, hence it's not obvious that the actions of today lead to problems of tomorrow. It might seem inconsequential to be obese today, but problems of varying degree are almost inevitable down the road. Maybe it's cardiovascular disease, or wear on joints, or cancer, or sleep apnea, or diabetes, or whatever. These things aren't trivial, but humans are mentally adaptable and can get used to anything, whether it's enslavement or the disrepair of their own bodies.

It's been distressing to me when some individuals I know who have bought into fat-positivity have suggested that there's actually nothing wrong with being fat and that it's a "sliding-scale", as if obesity can only possibly be a bad thing at the point of immobility. In reality, any amount of obesity can be a sign of dysfunction. But to suggest this is now considered offensive by some, such to the point that the media won't touch it with a 10-foot pole and even many doctors have stopped taking the weight of their patients.

If people are going to play the "if it just saves one life" card when it comes to measures against COVID, then they'd better fucking stop living in a fantasy land and consider whether the lack of health of the population is causing excess early death.

As somebody who works in public health in the United States, I can guarantee that obesity is seen as an epidemic, tracked in the population with annual surveys, and targeted as a component of disease. Governmental and non-profit public health organizations spend lots of money and time fighting obesity. They'll never advertise programs as a way for somebody to stop being obese, because accusing your audience of a moral failing is just bad advertising.

I remember arguing with people who said I should be lockdowned, but then balking at my suggestion that people should do mandatory park runs at the weekend, to lessen the chance of getting seriously ill with COVID.

Ironic. We shut down all the gyms because of COVID.