February 28, 2024 - 10:00am
The New York Times published a story this week about “body-positive” influencers who lose weight, and the fans who feel betrayed by their health journey. Accused of everything from “dishonesty” to “ableism”, formerly overweight content creators are met with disappointment and anger from the audiences who once loved them.
At first blush, this story is predictable: we’re in a culture that valorises weakness. It’s filled with the familiar trappings of the worst features of “wokeness”: accusations of duplicitous behaviour from an angry mob for doing something that not even 10 years ago would have been seen as praiseworthy; the conflation of a toxic and oppressive “diet culture” and healthy weight loss to be able to do things as simple as “wipe [their] ass,” as one influencer in the Times article candidly described it.
What’s striking is that it’s not that the audience is angry because they see these influencers as shallow, or leaning too far into “influencer culture”, because arguably that’s what they’re doing as fat women. They’re upset because, plain and simple, their favourite fat-positive influencer has lost weight. And they don’t care how, or why. (Ironically, one influencer the Times profiled was slipping back into disordered eating habits, and was not actually pursuing a healthier lifestyle. The audience neither knew nor cared: it was the act of losing weight in and of itself that was the betrayal.)
The audience’s desire for these influencers to remain overweight also speaks to the nature of the industry. When you become an influencer, you are not being celebrated for who you are, but rather what you represent. In the case of Dronme Davis, an influencer profiled by the Times, the appeal was that she was a fat woman, not that she was Dronme Davis.
There’s a misconception that your audience will love you for yourself. But it’s not about you, and never has been: it’s about what you’re an avatar for. For influencers, this is often a dehumanising discovery. They want to believe that their fans love them for themselves, regardless of who they are at a given moment. Sadly, that is not the case.
And it shouldn’t be surprising, either. If there is an influencer who gained a following by posting recipes and they pivot from cooking to make-up, they’re going to see an audience shift. But because of the parasocial nature of social media, it’s more difficult to comprehend when real people’s lives are at stake. It can even feel like betrayal.
Here’s another example. Every now and then, a political commentator will switch lanes, or go “off script”. Their career might survive, but they’ll lose part of their audience. They may also explode in popularity with the rebrand, yet only a small number of “ride or die” fans from their original base will remain as they evolve. Essentially, what they’re doing is rebooting their career, which then becomes something entirely different. Tim Pool, Candace Owens and Dave Rubin are three such examples.
So what does this say about body-positivity influencers? Firstly, there is a toxic cycle going on here — the obvious, intuitive one. People don’t look to body-positivity influencers for change, but for validation. If they wanted change, they’d follow someone who’s already declared they’re embarking on a “fitness journey”.
And secondly, it’s a harsh reminder that that’s show business, baby. It only feels personal.
Katherine Dee is a writer. To read more of her work, visit defaultfriend.substack.com.
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SubscribeWelcome to UnHerd where we challenge the mainstream and question everything in a way that feels oh so right and leads exactly to all the conclusions you’d already reached.
That’s not any kind of argument now is it. Maybe The Guardian is offering the validation YOU seek. Now look what what you made me go and do…
Isn’t that the same argument?
I wasn’t really trying to argue anything. Just hoping to incite some self-reflection but looks like I have failed. I’ll keep trying.
“Isn’t that the same argument? Which is the point I’m making. Read the comment again, especially the last sentence… slowly.
You enjoy going round in circles, it’s what you do best.
Well if you just want to wallow in your own flaws then you’re really embracing the body positivity argument.
I’m still working hard on getting my “Dad bod” into shape, how about you?
He was mirroring your comment as an example. You don’t change people’s minds by insulting them.
I actually learn a lot from reading the comments. Even yours, UnHerd Reader.
Do you actually disagree with the argument? I am quite happy to admit that it makes a claim that I had already concluded myself as being blindingly-obvious some time ago but clearly, for you, that’s evidence that I’m simply taking part in a prejudice-reinforcing echo chamber and not, for example, the more likely possibility that the author, I, and everyone else here who concurs are actually just correct.
Fat people can also be fickle people. Well it’s nice to know that they’re just as human as the rest of us.
Was anyone saying otherwise? They are the most human of all which is why so many hate them.
By ‘most human’, do you mean by volume?
Or mass. Either one will do.
Who hates fat people solely for being fat?
Depends if you’re sat next to one on a narrow airline seat.
I once sat in between to very large men, not fat but massive. I fluttered like a piece of paper when I disembarked.
—Kimberly
Betrayal and variants thereof is fast becoming the most over-used term in internet journalism – usurping even iconic in the cliché top spot. When an online windbag takes a different view of events their once eager followers feel betrayed – pathetic.
I doubt if many influencers became so involuntarily, and to be successful were likely to have well understood how to manipulate an audience for their gain. It is difficult to be sympathetic to a backlash if they start behaving differently to a fantasy image which they promoted for their own gain.
There is nothing positive about being fat, as no one really wants to be fat. This whole thing is just excuse-making.
Quite right. It’s possible to not care that one is fat, but nobody seriously dislikes being slim and wants instead to be fat.
Nobody wants to be fat, but some people are fat. Oprah Winfrey is an iconic example. And the more research is done, the more we find that most fat people can’t do anything about it. Over the long term, they can lose 10 to 15 pounds, but that’s about it, no matter how little they eat and how much they exercise.
Why is that? Why don’t diet and exercise work? The science is unclear but it seems like weight control in our bodies is a homeostatic system, like our body temperature and blood pressure. There is a set point of body weight our bodies try to maintain, using sensors and actuators just like our home heating uses a thermometer to know when to turn our furnace on and off.
Sometimes that set point gets set too high or too low. When it’s too high we are too fat. When it’s too low we are too thin (anorexic people may have this problem). We can try to override the system–to starve ourselves, or force feed ourselves–but that only works in the short term. And how is that set point set, or reset? We don’t know.
My discussion above paints a simplistic picture of our weight control system, and that’s too bad, because it’s complex. (As this article points out.) We don’t understand it very well. We can’t really experiment on people to test out different theories, and we might not find out much more if we did.
(One side note about this homeostatic body weight system. It’s a complex adaptive system, and there’s no way that Darwinian evolution can have created it. Endless iterations of random mutation and natural selection won’t work. A feedback system even at its simplest requires a sensor, a controller, and an actuator, which means it has to be designed and built.)
Drugs also work, but they have their own drawbacks. Fen-phen was popular in the 1980s until the US Food and Drug Administration banned it because it caused heart valve problems in a small number of people. (Some feel the FDA overreacted.) Now we have semaglutide (Wegovy and Ozempic) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, not yet approved for weight loss), but they may have some issues too. And drugs seem to become less effective over time.
The only thing that seems to work reliably long term is gastric bypass surgery, which cuts out part of your digestive tract. But most people don’t like to mutilate their bodies in that way. I know I never could. To me it’s too much like amputating a limb.
Given all that, I’m not sure that body positivity helps fat people much, but I think it’s a lot kinder than the alternative–fat-shaming–which I think is shameful.
To return to the topic of this article, if fat people who are social media influencers find a way to lose weight, I say more power to them. But of course that is going to turn off some followers who remain fat. That’s just being human.
Oh get a grip. It is almost exclusively type of food and quantity consumed.
Right. The dead giveaway should be that gastric bypass surgery works. How does it work? Does it change your biology? No, it forces you to eat less.
How do you know that? Can you cite any science?
Sorry I have to roll my eyes, but really? Do you know nothing about food and weight and disease? I’m not going to do your basic reading for you but start off with processed foods.
Yes, really. Whenever anyone expresses an opinion on a science topic contrary to mine, I like to find out what they rely on for that opinion. Sometimes I learn something that makes me change my mind. That’s why I asked for any scientific publications you know of that support your opinion. I’d like to read them.
I do know something about how our body weight control system works. I’m a lawyer but I also have a degree in math and computer science (with special interest in the feedback control theory pioneered by Norbert Wiener). Since it’s been decades since I had to work for a living, I spend a lot of my time on science.
Since 2014 I’ve studied the scientific tool of causal inference, where Turing Prize winner Judea Pearl has broken a lot of ground. Causal inference is the foundation of epidemiology, so to apply theory to practice I chose the obesity epidemic as a case to study. That has led me to, among other things, read over 50 books (both scientific and popular) and hundreds of articles (both scientific and popular).
One of the popular articles I read was one here on Unherd called Can You Escape Obesity?, which both you and I commented on. That article noted that the cause and cure of obesity are both unknown, but reported on a popular book Ultra-Processed People by Chris von Tolleken. Is that the kind of thing you are relying on? Or is it more your own personal experience and observation?
I may sound like a know-it-all but I certainly don’t know it all. And with the obesity epidemic, no one does. But we have come to know our body weight control system is a complex one that we do not understand very well. Pretending that there is a simple solution to obesity, and that fat people are fat because of their food choices, ignores the results we have been able to wrest out with science. That’s a pity.
It must have taken you a while to type all of that, shame it was mostly nonsense. Why did you go straight to drugs and surgery as remedies for being fat? Do enough physical activity and don’t stuff your face with too much food, either you won’t get fat or you’ll lose weight, depending which outcome you’re seeking.
I have a physical job, my waist is the same size it was when I was 18 and I eat whatever I like. If I got a different kind of job I’d need to eat less and exercise more, it’s basic self-discipline.
My brother put on too much weight and was diagnosed with diabetes last year, he immediately changed his diet, bought a bike and cycles for an hour at dawn every day, and regularly swims now. He’s lost almost three stone in six months and his doctor told him last week his diabetes is now undetectable.
If you don’t want to be fat you don’t need to be, get off your backside and move, eat properly and you’ll be fit and healthy.
It did take me a while to type out my comment, and I’m sorry you didn’t find it helpful. Good to hear of your brother’s success at losing weight, and best wishes to him to keep the weight off.
Those corners of social media populated by “body-positive” influencers are just a huge pot of moron stew.
I’m not sure ‘stew’ is the right metaphor. Perhaps ‘a huge pot of moron cookie dough ice cream’?
With fat replaced by sugars. American ‘light’ products contain more calories than the regular product. bourbon chocolate chip cookie dough double cream MM ice cream?
Yes and we’re all licking the spillage.
I miss fat shaming. It was fun. I remember, not too long ago, just before woke, a British stand-up comedienne told a ripper:
“My teenage daughter came home the other day, slammed the door and stomped into the living room with a pout.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Mummy I’m fat!’
‘Well I know, honey, but couldn’t you at least do us the favour of being jolly?'”
Men don’t seem to have as much of a tendency towards this need to chop down tall poppies. I’ve never seen an article where a male weightlifter is attacked for putting on muscle mass.
Indeed a rugby player , usually a forward, who ”bulks up” (ie puts on weight) can be lauded for doing so
At least they have muscle and are fit and active.
My hot take is that ‘body positivity’ is simply one little outgrowth of the disease of social media. It took the intellectual snacking and nibbling of Tik Tok and Instagram and Twitter to create ‘body positivity’, to connect its overweight believers with the woke identitarians who provide it with its underlying ideological foundation. The sooner we all put away our phones (and log off of UnHerd?) the better.
I don’t see any connection with this body positivity attitude and wokeness, whatever that is. To me, it sounds like a fat person in a MAGA hat who loves themself and their orange idol, just how they are.
What does ‘fat positive’ even mean? There is little positive about obesity and quite a bit that’s negative. If an overweight person is comfortable in their own skin, okay, good for them. But pretending that it’s just one more lifestyle that is no more good or bad than the rest is nonsense.
What a shallow society we have become when feelings get hurt over someone daring to color outside the lines while harming no one else. No wonder random behavior is being increasingly pathologized; the people engaging in it often come across as being in dire need of therapy.
“Fat-positive” is a politically-correct term, which means it is factually incorrect.
“Comfortable in their own skin”?
At a stretch…
The skin, definitely.
Body positivity: just one more variety of recognising victimisation. I’m going to start a positive crooked-teeth movement, a positive poor-athlete movement and a positive wimpy-nerd movement. I’ve given up on ideas of movements for positive alcoholic, positive cynic, positive grump, or positive anything that’s an -ism or -phobia.
I was wondering when this would happen: fat-positive influencers, before they become successful, are just fat women. And a large proportion of fat women from all walks of life who become successful, then go on to lose weight, simply because they then possess the resources to achieve it without the millstone-around-the-neck of the emotional eating habits they could not escape while they were obscure.
What’s also surprising is that any of them might seriously expect to retain their fan-base of fellow porkers after ceasing to be a porker themselves. What did they think would happen? Their fans would just go along with the implication that it’s fine for they, the fans, to carry on being fat, but they have to accept that the influencer in question now has a shot at a better, slimmer and more attractive life, so just keep watching the videos and try not to get too jealous?
Fat people are unhealthy. There are no old fat people, or certainly a smaller proportion of old people are really fat than 50 YOs. The fat ones dies, just not soon enough.
Wife and I lost 30 lbs in the last 5 months just be cutting back on alcohol and carbs. We are now on vaca, so are having the wine. We will be back on the diet when we get home again.
“health journey”
Ugh