Fat-shaming firestorm: Is it motivating or bullying?

Have you seen the flurry of online debate about whether fat shaming helps or hinders individual motivation to battle obesity?
The recent heated debate has been hard to miss, ever since skinny US talk show host Bill Maher said at the end of his nightly monologue earlier this month: “Fat shaming doesn’t need to go away, it needs to make a comeback.”
Maher gave statistics for the worsening obesity epidemic, puzzled over the growing body positive movement, and likened fat shaming to the motivating social pressure applied to smoking, seatbelts and racism. Said Maher about shaming: “It’s the first step in reform.”
Not surprisingly, the backlash was swift and furious, but it was fellow talk show host James Corden’s thoughtful and personal reply in his monologue September 12th that went massively viral.
“It’s bullying in disguise” said Corden who was open about his life-long battle with his weight and noted that when he heard Maher’s comments he thought ‘Someone with a platform needs to say something….ah, I guess that would be me.’
“Fat shaming has never gone away. We feel it all the time,” said Corden, noting that the common misconception about people who battle their weight is “that we are stupid and lazy, and we are not.”
If shaming worked as a motivator, said Corden, no one would ever be fat. “If making fun of fat people made them lose weight, there’d be no fat kids in schools…. Fat shaming only makes the problem worse.”
Corden’s passionate response was full of insight and on-point zingers. “We are not all as lucky as Bill Maher. We don’t all have a sense of superiority that burns 35,000 calories a day.”
But the debate did not end there. In the past week newspapers, magazines, talk shows, panel shows and Twitter have all weighed in on the issue. Most proclaimed Maher’s comments were offensive and ill-informed, but a surprising number of (usually skinny) commentators took Maher’s side, usually citing the eat-less-exercise-more dogma.
One of the most unenlightened exchanges occurred on the UK talk show, Good Morning Britain, hosted by Piers Morgan. UK celebrity personal trainer Danielle (Danni) Levy defended Maher and said, astoundingly: “The more we fat shame, the more people would keep their mouths shut and stop overeating.”
The statement garnered a huge Twitter backlash against her but she stands by her comments saying “it is not an aesthetic issue, it is about health!” She called anyone who posts a differing opinion on her Twitter feed “a troll.”
Even The New York Times got in on the debate, asking “If fat shaming doesn’t work, what does?” The article’s expert advice, frankly, was hugely disappointing. While the toxic food environment and lack of evidence-based approaches to weight loss in medical care were cited, not a word was said about the hypothesis that excessive carbohydrate loads in modern diets and the low-fat message of the last 40 years may have contributed to an over-consumption of carbs.
Nor was a word was mentioned in the article that perhaps cutting carbohydrates and upping fat, or even trying a ketogenic diet, might work for those who had life-long battles with their weight. (In the comments, some did describe their own personal success with a low-carb or ketogenic approach.)
Instead, the article promoted more government paternalism, such as Japan’s mandated yearly waist measurements (essentially state-sanctioned shaming), the need to find a “safe” pharmaceutical drug fix, and the need for more access to bariatric surgery. Sigh.
In all, the tone and tenor of the extensive debate shows how far we still need to come as a society in understanding and reversing the obesity epidemic and supporting and assisting people who may become obese despite their best efforts.
The vast majority of visitors to this site know that fat shaming doesn’t work and has never worked. It is down-right bullying, and never an effective long-term motivator. Solid, evidence-based research and individual support for dietary change is a more effective way to go.
That is what we are endeavoring to do, every day, at Diet Doctor. We aim to empower people everywhere to dramatically improve their health.
Thanks for reading — and thanks for helping spread the word about other ways to address the obesity epidemic and tackle poor metabolic health. Perhaps the Bill Maher’s and Danni Levy’s of the world, faced with new information, will eventually open their minds and update their outdated, ill-informed opinions.


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HOWEVER, the fat acceptance and even positivity movement is, imo, even worse.
The Japanese style government mandated measurement is anathema to me as libertarian leaning American but something like that and be implemented as the norm in families or by family doctors or just as general expectation. There's really no legitimate reason in the developed world for a man to be above ~18% body fat or a woman to be above ~25%.
Perhaps if those limits were defended more aggressively, ideally with LCHF and/or IF, but maybe even with just calorie reduction we'd be better off...
(having bounced around between 215 lbs and 270lbs (cur 245) for the past 25 years (as 6' male) i can't help but wonder how life would have been different if I'd had more pressure about my weight back in high school when i was getting to 190lbs... )
If you look at the data fat people don't eat a lot as is assumed that they are just gluttons. When you look into the cause it's WHAT they eat not how much, the LOW FAT garbage pushed onto us is the CAUSE of all the problems.
The more you study the topic the more informed you get, but the lazy few that do the shaming have no interest in doing this, it's much easier just to blurt out the populist uneducated dogma, EAT LESS AND MOVE MORE. And of course the worst offenders are the supposed educated ones that we take as a given they have some idea!
The "health provider" thing is a red herring... eating is much more a lifestyle and social thing than a medical thing. And as we've often discussed on this site the medical establishment has thoroughly messed up on the weight kids front for about 50 years.
I'm not advocating that people should be shunned as lepers for being overweight, but some level of stigma about it is good, imo.
Also it doesn't follow that "if fat shaming worked nobody would be fat": without fat shaming it's likely that more people would be fat or or fatter.
On the general topic that weight is socially influenced: "How fat friends make you fat"
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-your-friends-make-you-fat%E2%...
(do i believe it 100%? no. but how many times have i eaten office doughnuts or candy or pizza just because it was there? (many)
or gotten ice cream because i was with friends and "what the heck" ))
We know what makes people fat, excess calorie consumption, and any study into why people do that is the real concern... Although the problem with psychological studies, is the whole psychological part.
It's not all about the calories. Here's a good start, and the book Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes is also a great resource if you're interested in reading more.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/common-currency-bodies-not-calories-guess
I'm still a good 50 lbs away from not being overweight and prob 75 lbs from where i "should" be.
What I'm getting at is that if someone/something had stopped me when i was 20lbs overfat i wouldn't have gotten to 100lbs overfat.
That said, when my dad told me to eat less in middle school and high school ... i didn't listen. Would i have if he'd pushed it more? prob not, i admit. but maybe... or if my friends/ teammates had. idk.
But, let's look at the US military: people have to meet weight and fitness standards every year of their career and (until lately) they were all about cardio and calorie reduction and some amount of shame. idk about all the psychological impacts, but it mostly seems to work even with those suboptimal dietary methods. Not entirely, since some people do get kicked out for not making the numbers, but it's a LOT fewer than in society at large.
Otoh, i was at one point part of a fitness community (strength training related) that not only excused but encouraged obesity: "you're not a real man if you're not over 200 lbs. eat more!". This didn't really impact me since i was already fat, but it pains me to think what or does to impressionable young dudes...
So community norms matter... and i think the old norms on this (before my time... like the 50s) are much much better than Lindy West et al.
Education is what we need - all of us - in order for us to make informed decisions about our lives.
Let us not stand in judgement of people but rather see how we can spread valid, properly researched information to help, to make a positive impact on the world around us. Thank you Diet Doctor for doing just this.