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Poeple should show the science of being fat and point out the bad effects of it has on body, but they should not show the science on a living human to mock him, the purpose should be education for the the uneducated not mocking with the shield of science.
Not that I’m condoning making fun of people who are overweight (I am overweight, after all but currently working on it) but this is done in some cases and it’s still seen as a form of mockery to many people today. It’s getting to the point of doctors not feeling comfortable being able to tell someone that what’s happening in their body is harmful to their health and they need to reconsider their current lifestyle.
Which I think the body positive movement has been good in terms of getting away from the jokes and mockery but at the same time has been a detriment to many people in making them think that there’s nothing wrong and they can and should continue on the path they’re going down. Even going as extreme as to say that doctors, health professionals, and family and friends who genuinely care and are not being disrespectful are actually mocking them just for pointing out an unhealthy lifestyle. Not everyone in the body positive movement is this way, but I see what I want to believe is a very vocal minority of people who are trying to shift things in that direction in this movement.
When you think about it, honestly, we’re probably in a better place than we were a few decades ago in terms of the mockery and jokes at someone’s weight. The movies and TV shows of the 80’s and 2000’s were often filled with these jokes and it was common place in general in society. Seemed like every TV show had a dedicated “fat person” who had fat jokes about their weight and overeating, or at least was centered around this like The King of Queens (which I love, by the way, but the fat jokes at Doug can get repetitive after a while). Speaking anecdotally, I remember kids getting made fun of for being fat growing up in those decades, but even though I’m not young in this current generation, judging based off of popular social media, it seems like they don’t condone that anymore among themselves like previous generations had. Our entertainment doesn’t seem to have these as jokes any longer. I’m sure they exist in some specific shows and movies, and the ones that immediately come to mind seem to be ones that were from those times (Simpsons, Family Guy) but just not as prevalent as they once were which seems an indication of a change in society as well.
All in all to say, I agree that mocking people for their weight is horrible and often actually does the inverse of making those same people turn towards more overeating in depression over their constant treatment, but things seem to be getting better, while at the same time, we may be crossing from one unhealthy extreme into another on the polar opposite and should be careful about that. Careful not to go from the extreme of making fun of people who are overweight to the extreme of accepting it so much so that we don’t take time to allow people to provide actual constructive criticism to someone who is going down a dangerous path.