(gentle music)
(camera flash clicking) - [Lady] One day I found Tess Holliday and Tess Holliday looked amazing to me. - [Lady] People like her are really, really changing society, and I wanna be like her. - [Lady] The way she
loves herself and her body and doesn't care what
anyone says about it. And she inspires me, she motivates me. - [Lady] She had all this makeup done and her hair was pretty, and she looked so glamorous. I wanted to be like Tess Holliday. (camera flash clicking) (playful music) - [Kiana] The Health
At Every Size movement, or HAES, has been around for a long time, but has exploded in popularity
over the last few years, with more and more social media posts such as these every day. It's not the fat that kills us, it's the fat hatred. Health status is not defined by weight, so weight loss programs
are about aesthetics. Your weight is not the problem, food is not the problem, diet culture is the problem. I don't have an eating problem, I have a fatphobia problem. Or my personal favorite, BMI is government propaganda. At the most extreme end, Health At Every Size
supporters and fat activists argue that obesity is not dangerous, and that bodies naturally
come in all shapes and sizes, all the way up to 600 pounds, or what would be called
infinifat according to them. Some even called the
obesity epidemic a myth. They say it doesn't kill
people or cause disease. - [Lindo] We hear in the news all the time about an obesity epidemic and how people are dying of obesity, and what we see is that
it's just not true. - According to them, the diseases we often
attribute to obesity, such as diabetes and hypertension, are the result of weight stigma, the psychological pressure
of living in a society that mistreats fat people, and not due to the excess weight itself. Many HAES supporters go as far as to say that the war on obesity
is a form of eugenics, and gastric bypass is, quote, voluntary amputation. And they're campaigning to have the word stricken from the medical literature and classified as hate speech. At this point you might
be saying to yourself, how is it possible that
something so preposterous has become almost mainstream? And surprisingly, the answer
seems to be Tess Holliday. Today we'll be discussing Tess Holliday; the biggest and most dangerous lie of Health At Every Size, namely that morbid obesity
can be considered healthy; and the research or lack thereof, that's used to support these claims. I hope you guys enjoyed my double intro. This video actually started
off as a way more casual video, but the more I read and the more I saw, the more I was like, nope, I'm gonna drop everything
and make this gigantic video about Tess Holliday and
Health At Every Size. (Kiana chuckling) I've labeled everything with timestamps, so if you want to hop
around or rewatch stuff, it should be pretty easy to do so. We're gonna get into a lot of stuff today, but before we do I should say
a few disclaimers upfront. Throughout this video I'm going to be using the terms fat activist, Health At Every Size supporter, and body positivity person
to mean the same thing. There is a distinction
between these groups and they're not all harmful, but that line is very blurry online, so I'm gonna be using them
interchangeably during the video. I also wanna say that
there are definitely people practicing Health At Every Size a lot more reasonably than the depiction you're about to see here. I went into this video thinking that HAES was gonna be a lot more reasonable than I've seen it portrayed
by the extremists online, but I actually ended up leaving it thinking that it was even
more harmful than I thought, and you guys are going to see why today. All right, let's get started. (upbeat drum music) Tess Holliday made waves in 2015 as the first size 22 model to
be signed to a major agency. - And it's something I
wanted to do my whole life, and everyone always told me I
would never be able to do it. They laughed at me. They made fun of me. And I don't know if it was
delusion but I just was, like, I'm gonna try. - [Kiana] Since then, she's been called the world's biggest supermodel, worked with big brands like
H&M and Benefit Cosmetics, and named one of the
most influential people on the internet by "Time Magazine". (upbeat music) And by 2018, she had already landed the now
infamous cover of "Cosmo" UK. - Did you see the cover
of "Cosmopolitan" magazine that was widely criticized because they had a
morbidly obese woman on? - Many people say they
love the body positive move made by "Cosmo" UK. Others say Tess Holliday is
an unhealthy representation. - (indistinct)
- You are celebrating- You are celebrating-
- I'm celebrating her. - Morbid obesity.
- I am not celebrating morbid obesity.
- That's what you're doing. You want-
- This cover, this is one cover which has a large lady on the cover in a sea, in a world, in a culture which has venerated, since I can remember, thinness. - Seeing someone like me on the cover of a glossy magazine
shouldn't be top news. - They're hailing her as brave. I mean, what's brave
about eating ice cream? - She's literally morbidly obese. She's fucking dying. She's addicted to food in a horrible way. And to promote that and
pretend that somehow or another this is okay and... - Clearly there were some mixed reactions. Some people saw Tess's
cover as a special moment for body positivity, while others went as far as to say it was glorifying obesity. The term glorifying obesity is thrown around a lot these days, and not always appropriately. (Keyboard clicking) When one third of Ashley
Graham was featured on the cover of "Vogue",
glorifying obesity. When Nike rolled out a plus-size mannequin so fat people could
exercise, glorifying obesity. When Mattel offered up a curvy Barbie, size eight, US medium, glorifying obesity? Every plus-size girl dancing around on TikTok, glorifying obesity. As you can see, there is quite the range here. And there is a distinction
between being fat and living your life and pretending that obesity is no big deal. Except that in Tess' case, it kind of actually was glorifying obesity for real this time. At 5'5 and over 300 pounds, Tess Holliday is by far the biggest model to have ever graced the
cover of a major magazine. I've thought about this
a lot and I don't know that it's fair to say that
Tess' cover is problematic in of itself. After all, having a particularly admirable or healthy lifestyle hasn't
exactly ever been a prerequisite to be a model or celebrity. And in many ways if you think about it, unhealthy lifestyles have
been glamorized forever at this point. Now, is that a good thing? No, none of this is good. But I think to be
disproportionately offended because an obese woman is on
the cover of a magazine is, I think, unfair. And actually, Tess had already been on the cover of "People" magazine in 2015, which by readership is five
times larger than "Cosmo" UK, without nearly the same
level of controversy. The difference in outrage
seems to stem from the fact that "Cosmo" felt the need
to devote an entire page to declaring that Tess was strong, fit and 300 pounds. And most of the discussion revolved around her excellent
health and workout regime, as opposed to her fight for
body positivity and self-love. - I know we've been putting
this off for a little bit and now it's time to talk. - My goals are just to feel
better and be stronger, and also show people
that fat girls work out. - Showing people that fat girls work out is a big thing for Tess. She chose a famous personal trainer. They both made announcements about it on their Instagram accounts. They shot multiple videos
while they were together and they even shot that "PeopleTV" segment in just the few short months that they were working together. Now, Tess has a running
sponsorship with Fabletics. And since that time I
haven't seen any videos of her working out. So I guess the photo shoots in athletic clothes are meeting her quota for showing people that
fat girls work out, 'cause she has totally stopped with that. All in all it just feels
very contrived to me. I feel like it's one
thing for Tess Holliday to be on the cover of a
magazine for any reason because she validates plus-size women, because she's popular, because you ought to be controversial to sell more magazines, whatever. But something completely different, when "Cosmo" takes a stand
to validate Tess' delusion that she's healthy to millions of people and then goes as far as to
shove it down our throats with three pages about her workout regime, as opposed to making the article literally about anything else. The problem with this is "Cosmo" just put mainstream media's
stamp of approval on one of the most heinous lies
of Health At Every Size, the preposterous untruth that morbid obesity can
be considered healthy. - What about your own health, Tess? Because we had a report very recently in this country saying it's a myth that you can be very overweight, obese and be healthy. So do you worry about your weight? You've got young children. Do you worry about your health? - Look, I would not go through having kids and what it does to your body
to not be around for them, you know what I mean? I know that I am healthy. - Being a healthy, extremely obese person is
an oxymoron, point blank. And it is extremely dangerous
to suggest otherwise on talk shows and the front of magazines. So this was a caption from
one of Tess' Instagram posts which has since been removed but was cataloged on a website. "To say and actually believe things like, "if you're fat you're
automatically unhealthy, "is wildly inaccurate. "You can absolutely be
overweight and be healthy. "I know because I am not, in fact, "over seven feet tall to
balance out my weight. "So according to my BMI, I'm obese, "which is hilarious to me, "not because I think
being unhealthy is funny, "but because I'm healthy. "Extremely so, in fact. "I'm able to keep up with
my children perfectly." So Tess is saying a lot in that statement. First off, most notable
being that she's not obese. You don't really just get
to opt out of being obese, unless there's an issue with
BMI and you're not meant to be in that category, which would not apply to
this level of obesity, or you go and have your fat
scanned and you find out that you're actually carrying
200 pounds of muscle. Being able to do essential life tasks such as watching after your children or stand on your feet all day to
do your job does not prove that you are extremely healthy. Now, there's enough data to suggest that you can indeed be
overweight and be healthy. But to be fair, there is also data suggesting that, no, people are healthiest
within the normal BMI range and beyond that you are less healthy. You can make a compelling
argument with the data that's out there for either one. But that is not what
we're talking about here. There are no doctors
that I've seen arguing that you can be this obese and be healthy. This is the equivalent of someone who's like a high functioning alcoholic or a chain smoker saying
that because they don't have any issues right now, because they don't have
a disease right now, that they're healthy. Well no, you have an addiction. And by "Cosmo" validating
this by acting like, oh Tess, she lives a healthy lifestyle, she's just big, it plays into the Health
At Every Size narrative that you can be this big
and it's not suggestive of you living an unhealthy lifestyle or having a problem with food. You know, you're just born that way. You're just built like that. And unfortunately, "Cosmo"
is not the only one validating Tess' delusions
to millions of people. There seems to be this
budding corporate trend of discussing health as if
it just involves declaring, I am healthy, as opposed to being defined by actively living a healthy lifestyle and not engaging in destructive behavior. Prior to this cover, Tess was actually featured
on the front of "Self", an actual health magazine, or at least it was a health magazine. I don't know what you would call it today. And "Health" magazine has
featured many fat activists as of late, including Virgie Tovar which, if you've seen my video on her, you'll know her definition of
health is a little out there. Actually, Virgie recently also said, "There is no such thing
as individual health." So there you have it, in the land of body positivity
health is so subjective that it basically doesn't even exist. And the corporate world
is so desperate to cash in on people's insecurities
that they're willing to put feelings over facts
and people's health at risk in order to pander. In my opinion though, one of the most empowering discoveries over the last however
many years is just how big of an impact our decisions, our actions can have on our, what's called our health span, which is essentially the
amount of years we live in our lives in good health, free from the chronic
diseases that come with aging. And is that not extremely
encouraging to the general public? Why would we ever downplay
that to any degree at all? This is as far as I can tell, the definition of glorifying obesity, obscuring the truest reality
of the disease of obesity and pretending that it is
somehow not a big deal. And although this hypothesis
is still unsupported by current research, moments like these are huge for movements like Health At Every Size. And why many of Tess'
obese followers believe that Tess is healthy and
therefore they're healthy too. It's also why people
suddenly feel confident saying things like this. - Can this person go back to school please or go do some research and
not be a fucking idiot? Fat does not equal unhealthy. Get your info straight before
you hop on the Internet and be an idiot. - Now, fat might not equal unhealthy but being very obese certainly does. So before we discuss the
science that fat activists use to support their claims, let's talk a little bit about the cold, hard and unglamorous reality of obesity. (keyboard clicking) The inconvenient truth in
this instance is that at 5'3 and over 300 pounds
Tess Holliday has a BMI of at least 49 and would be considered to have the most extreme form of obesity, class III, formerly
known as morbidly obese. At this size Tess is at risk
for over 200 different diseases and much to the chagrin of
the politically correct, obesity itself is classified as a disease because it is not only an underpinning of major chronic diseases, but a serious debilitating
condition in its own right. So how is obesity a debilitating
condition in its own right? Two of the biggest
reasons for this are, one, dangerous visceral fat and, two, mechanical issues stemming
from extra weight. Also, you guys totally lucked
out because I was planning on showing you these really, really gross anatomy
videos of visceral fat. But I found out it's against
the community guidelines. (Kiana chuckling) So if you want to see
them you can look them up, they're on YouTube. They're super gross though so be warned. Visceral fat is commonly
referred to as belly fat but specifically refers to the fat wrapped around
your internal organs. We all have and need visceral fat but too much visceral
fat leaks excess hormones and inflammatory molecules
into your bloodstream, putting your body into a
chronic inflammatory state which results in DNA damage
and majorly ups your risk for a ton of different
diseases and cancers. Mechanical issues, the most
obvious and observable reason that obesity is horrendous
for your body is simple, all that extra body weight is heavy. Our bodies were not designed
to carry an excess 100, 200, 300 pounds. And lugging this weight around has serious and unavoidable consequences. Extra weight wears down
the cartilage in the knees and joints prematurely. The damage increases
exponentially as weight is gained because your joints not only have to deal with the extra pressure, but the increase of force during movement. According to Harvard Medical School, when you walk across
level ground the force on your knees is the equivalent of one and 1/2 times your body weight. That means, Tess, at 300-plus pounds is putting
450 pounds of pressure on her knees with each step. While someone at 150 pounds is
only putting about 225 pounds of pressure per step. This is why it's very dangerous for very obese people to exercise. - At some point in time, if she keeps up this type of training, Tess Holliday will most
likely suffer an injury to her ankle, her lower back or her knees - As you continue to go up and wait, that pressure just continues to compound. Every minute you spend at that size you're needlessly
harming your body. This alone, for me, is enough to declare Health
At Every Size a myth. I could go on forever about
the consequences of obesity, but there are decades
of research and proof to support this already. It is very obvious that your weight may indeed disqualify you from the healthy category. Anyway, now that we've gone over that, let's get back to Tess and how
she became the gateway drug to Health At Every Size? (keyboard clicking) Many plus-size women have felt held back or defined by society's
often unfair depictions of bigger women. - Billy. Billy. Billy. - Daddy. (upbeat drum music) - [Kiana] So while it may seem
that Tess Holliday is famous in spite of her weight, in reality, she's become so successful
because of her weight. As far as famous plus-size models go, Ashley Graham came before her, but Ashley Graham still looks
exactly like a typical model with the classic 0.7 waist to hit ratio, a big butt and boobs and no
visible lumps with smooth, shiny, tight skin. Basically, her body still looks
like a typical model's body. Even with "Cosmo's" best efforts, however, Tess' body doesn't. Tess is lumpy. Tess has a lot of cellulite. She has back fat, underarm flaps and ample body rolls. Tess, in some ways then is more like the average plus-size
woman than any other cover model to come before her. - But it's just amazing to
have a role model like Tess and actually see someone who actually looks like
me owning their sexiness and owning their curves and be someone that I could actually relate
to in the mainstream media. - [Kiana] And this common ground makes her incredibly influential. - Why hate yourself and
why deprive yourself of having the most beautiful life possible because you happened to be fat or you happened to be a different color or you happen to be whatever, whatever's holding you back? Like life's too (bleep)
short for that (bleep). - [Kiana] These women
see Tess being celebrated for her beauty and think, I can be beautiful too. The #effyourbeautystandards
she started has grown to over 4.5 million
reposts of women declaring that they find themselves beautiful, regardless of what you or society thinks. And they're looking to
Tess for inspiration and as a role model, even going as far as to
idolize her in some instances. - [Lady] When I was at high
school and I got on Instagram, one of the very first people I followed was the great Tess Holliday. - People like Tess Holliday give me and so many other women confidence. - [Lady] I had never seen someone who looked like me at the time, who had the same kind of body
as me rocking it, honestly. I had not seen that before. - [Lady] And she showed
me how to love my body. She showed me how to love every curve, every lump, every bump and just to be happy in the body that I'm in. - [Lady] Yeah, she is like an icon, a pioneer of plus size. - Oh, I'm just, I'm very proud of her. I don't know her or anything like that but I feel like I do because I can relate to her so strongly. - [Lady] I still have
the "People's" magazine from whenever she was on the cover. That was a historic moment for me. I kept it and I'd saved
it all these years. - [Lady] I had never felt
so excited and so accepted. - This emotional connection
to Tess on such a sensitive and personal topic means that
these women are very receptive to things that Tess has to say, which would be all fine and well if Tess limited the
conversation to beauty standards and body positivity but as we've seen, she just doesn't. - I always mention my success but then it would always
be followed with, well, she's unhealthy or this so, which I'm not. - She's constantly reaffirming to everyone that she's healthy and anyone who says otherwise is just fatphobic. So when these women come
to Tess seeking inspiration and to feel more body positive
they're also receiving a dose of Health At Every Size at the same time. Because of this, Tess Holliday, as the most famous
body-positive influencer, as well as other bopo influencers, have become the gateway drug
to Health At Every Size. Where you go looking for one, you often find the other. Now, to really understand
what I mean by this, it's important to take a
look back at the origins of Health At Every Size
and how we got here? - Hi, I'm Dr. Linda Bacon and I'm devoted to creating a global transformation that focuses on body respect, not the war on weight. - HAES has been around for many years but became more popular
following the 2008 publishing of a book of the same
name by Dr. Lindo Bacon, formerly Linda, who you
were just introduced to. When I first started
researching Health At Every Size for this video I was actually surprised at how reasonable some of the ideas were. - Health at Every Size is a movement that is basically just encouraging people to adopt good health behaviors and to forget about weight as a goal or weight change as a goal, and instead, just embrace the bodies
that we're living in and make good health
choices to support them. - It doesn't sound so bad, right? I wholeheartedly agree that
forgetting about the number on the scale and just
focusing on the behaviors that lead to good health
is not only the best way to get healthy but, ironically, probably the best way
to lose weight as well. And honestly, there are
many other reasonable and important ideas in this book that I think could be helpful for people, such as the need to practice
self-acceptance at any size, the need to end weight
stigma in health care, and the fact that crash diets, even if they do lead to weight loss, are not healthy or sustainable. If this was all the movement was pushing, it would be a good thing. But, and it's a big but, unfortunately these ideas are
overshadowed with the need to push that fat or obesity
is not unhealthy in any way, shape or form. And what's particularly
harmful about this is that it's done in a way that suggests that this is the truth
according to science. - Okay, so we don't have evidence that fat is the killer
it's made out to be, you may be thinking, but it clearly causes disease. Does it? Suspend your preconceptions and a very different picture emerges, one where it's the
machinery of weight stigma that needs dismantling. - Some of these scientific truths, according to HAES are, "Your body size is almost
100% genetically determined "and not at all under your control. "Weight loss is scientifically
impossible," and quote, "those who do succeed
are statistical anomalies "whose habits are akin to
eating disorder behavior "and extreme amounts of exercise." "There are no health benefits
to losing weight anyway, "in fact, it might be
harmful to your health. "Excess body fat does
not affect your health." And, of course, "Diets don't work." With no nuance applied to suggest that a lifestyle change does work. Health At Every Size literally claims that obesity isn't unhealthy, and even if it was, weight loss is impossible so
we should all just stop trying. - The best way to win
the war against fat is to give up fight. - Before we continue, for anyone watching this thinking, no, no, you have healthy sized all wrong, it is not about pushing that fat or obesity is not unhealthy. According to many websites and Health At Every Size practitioners, the issues that I've mentioned
with HAES are misconceptions. They're ideas that have been
distorted by the Internet and they're not reflective of the true, benign nature of Health At Every Size. Even YouTube's own Abby Sharp
is Health At Every Size. And she has a disclaimer
on her website which says, "It's Health At Every Size, "not healthy at every size, "a subtle but important distinction." But the more I looked, the more I saw that that
was not true at all. In fact, on the official
Health At Every Size website there is blatant obesity denial. In the FAQ section there
is a question that says, "Shouldn't we be looking for a cure "for obesity rather than
promoting size acceptance?" And their official answer
not only included obese and question marks as
if it were fictional, but also stated, "In order to cure a condition, "the condition must be
defined as a disease. "If we say obesity is a disease, "then we must say on some level that body fat is pathological. "But there is no evidence
that adipose tissue is harmful "to our health." Yeah, so it was then that I realized that not only were Health At Every Size and fat acceptance similar, but they were the exact same thing. If you don't believe
me then keep watching. (keyboard clicking) Healthateverysizeblog.org
chronicles the roots of HAES, tracing the foundational
ideas all the way back to the '60s and '70s where
a political group called the Fat Underground banned together to try to infiltrate the medical
establishment in an attempt to change anti-fat attitudes that, quote, "Perpetuated the unhealthy
habits encouraged "by diet culture," sound familiar? - 99% of the people who
lose weight gain it back. 90% of those people gained
back more than they lost. - Women like ourselves who are forced to diet our entire lives because
we're naturally fat women and who are talking about
100 pound weight loss, that is killing us. - [Group] It's because it's
your body's nature to be fat and that's the reason. You know you'll have no life at all until you accept
yourself as the woman you are. - Their motto was literally, "Doctors are the enemy. "Weight loss genocide." And the, "Change society, not ourselves," ideology was apparently the
foundation of their movement. And no, that's not satire, that's really what it says. If you were to go and look up the history of the
fat acceptance movement as a political group
you would actually find the exact same story as what's posted here for
Health At Every Size. The history of Health At
Every Size and the history of fat acceptance are the exact same. They're the same group. Most of, if not all the foundational ideas of Health At Every Size as
they exist today can be found back then in various fat acceptance texts. Let's see if we recognize
any of these ideas? "Biology, not eating habits
is the main cause of fat. "Health problems of fat people "are not inherently due to fat, "but the result of stress, "self-hatred and chronic dieting. 'Weight loss efforts damage health, "almost never succeed except temporarily "and should not be used." And actually here's a
quote from a book titled, "Don't Diet" that they listed
on their website as one of their texts which pretty much echoes the
sentiment we saw earlier. "There is no good reason to
consider the general increase "in fatness an epidemic. "People are becoming taller, too, "but nobody talks about a height epidemic. "Nor is there any good reason "to consider fatness a disease. "The people of the Western
world are both fatter "and healthier than ever before." And the experts and co-founders of Healthy At Every Size, as listed by ASDA's website, are all members of NAAFA, the National Association
to Advance Fat Acceptance. Clearly, even after all these years, Health At Every Size has not come very far from its roots and fat activism. Now, as a quick disclaimer, Health At Every Size has
become a huge movement today and I am not by any means saying that all Health At
Every Size practitioners are fat activists. I'm sure there are lots
of HAES professionals that practice it a lot
more responsibly than what's being depicted here, and are not even aware
that this is a Trojan Horse for fat activism. Now obviously, it's my opinion
that it's a Trojan horse but if the shoe fits. (Kiana chuckling) So sure, you might say
that everything I've listed is a misconception but I would argue that it's a misconception
that these are misconceptions, and it's a ploy to seem
more reasonable than it is in order to advance the
goals of the movement. And at its core, Health At Every Size's main
goal is to push fat activism and not health. And, of course, conveniently the more radical ideas of Health At Every Size are what spread like wildfire
across social media a by body positive influencers like Tess, while the more reasonable
ideas take a back seat or are stripped of nuance
to the point of uselessness. You do not need to downplay
the very real risks of obesity to champion the idea that everyone can take steps to live a healthier lifestyle
regardless of their body size. And the fact that they do
shows their true intent, in my opinion. (keyboard clicking) The impact of Health At Every Size message is being disseminated by
Tess Holliday and similar, is that some of her
followers have been pulled into the rhetoric of Health At Every Size, and now truly believe that it's possible to be morbidly obese and healthy. - After I discovered Tess, it led me to discover a
lot of other fat positive, fat acceptance influencers. So one of the big points that I remember was always subscribing to the idea that I was
fat but I was healthy. My blood work was fine. Everything was fine so I'm fine. I was really excited to
finally feel accepted and to finally feel like my body was good and it was beautiful. My body was good and it was just unhealthy and I didn't wanna see that and entering in to the
fat acceptance movement really made me blind to that. - [Kiana] And the fact that Tess and other obese people
receive so much hate online, telling them otherwise
pushes these women further into their online groups
and deeper into the lies of Health At Every Size. - Fat people have to live in a
world that openly hates them. They talk about solving
the obesity epidemic, that means getting rid of people like me. - After all, if you're obese, you're living in an obese body, you truly believe that obese
people are just as healthy, that they were born this way and that they can't change it at all, and the world refuses to acknowledge us and even shames you and
pressures you to do something that's impossible, well, then it can kind of feel like the whole world is against you. And speaking from experience, fat people do get bullied
and they are ostracized in many ways for their weight. So this, coupled with
the Health At Every Size and fat activists whispering in your ear that everybody hates fat people, can really make you feel like you need to attach yourself to your group. We are wired to define ourselves by those who we consider in and out of our groups, something called in-group favoritism. For a certain sex of the body positivity and fat acceptance movements, anyone who is happily obese
is welcome in the group. However, anyone losing weight or propagating hashtag
diet culture is a threat to the group and therefore, unwelcome. - Participating in a diet that says you must lose
weight to be more worthy is not body positive. Being forced to lose weight for medical reasons is not body positive. I am asking you to think critically about how your participation in
diet culture may be harmful to other people. - Meaning that if members
want to remain in their group where they've made friends, where they feel more accepted and beautiful than they
do in regular society, then they are under
pressure to remain fat. Tess, herself is very
careful to make sure that, although everyone knows she's
living that healthy lifestyle, she is absolutely under
no circumstances trying to lose weight. In her interview for the
"Self" magazine cover that we talked about, she talks about starting to eat healthier but feeling guilty about it. Tess worries that her fans and followers might take
the shift the wrong way. And as quick to clarify, "I'm still gonna eat
Cheetos and all of that." She understands that a brand built on self-acceptance might
question changes in her lifestyle if they come across as
abandoning this core philosophy. Wow, sounds like a really loving and accepting group of people, ready to lynch you at a moment's notice if you so much as stop eating Cheetos. Clearly, Tess is aware that
she now needs to stay obese in order to retain the love
and respect of her fans. And if she ever happened to lose weight or needed to lose weight
for medical reasons, she'd be in a tough situation. She'd be attacked and she
would definitely be dethroned as their queen of body positivity. Because no one in this group will admit that obesity is unhealthy, all intentional weight loss
is considered fatphobia, even in the face of serious and life-threatening medical concerns, resulting in a toxic
culture where people have to choose between their friends and their online community
and their health. - Making choices to become
healthier were my choices. And I made those choices very aware of what would come as a result of them. - I'd had this health scare. My doctor came and saw me and he revealed that I had type II diabetes, which I had never received
that diagnosis before. And he was basically, like, look, you have to lose
some amount of weight in order to deal with this
or you're gonna have to be, just, permanently on
medication for diabetes, probably for the rest of your life. - I held myself back from losing weight because I thought I was making
this political statement, right, and I was being such a rebel and that I was part of this
fat acceptance movement and no body shaming and
loving and accepting myself. - I wanted to belong to
some sort of community. - What I found was that
I was being pushed out of these spaces where body positivity
activism was happening. People that I really admired, other writers, body positive writers, fat positive writers, I was being asked to leave these spaces, because I first of all felt
that there were some scenarios where it was acceptable
to wanna lose weight. - And what has happened
is any plus-size person who's ever lost weight in this space has been viciously
attacked by this community. - I thought that they were
all about accepting yourself, loving yourself, loving your body, no body shaming, all of these very good things. - So body positivity and
the fat acceptance movement was supposed to be all inclusive. They're supposed to be
like these loving people but I'm being kicked out of it. - The more I was in it, the more I saw how judgemental they were. If you did decide to start losing weight and wanted to become healthy, they just cast you out
and they didn't wanna have anything else to do with you. And to be honest, I never really felt like
I truly was accepted in that community. - I always felt like I was faking, like I was being someone I didn't like in order to get a group of people who didn't wanna see me succeed, to like me. (keyboard clicking) - So why is it that Health At Every Size and body positivity
activists feel confident in smugly claiming that they know better? - I've got science on my side and I'm happy to stand with it. - Unfortunately, a lot of
it has to do with the author of the book, Lindo Bacon. If you still had any hope
that HAES is more rational than it seems at the outset, that hope will probably
die during this section of the video. (Kiana chuckling) Lindo Bacon has a PhD, is apparently a scientist, has worked in research, but their ideas aren't exactly unbiased or rigorously tested. The crux of Lindo's
argument in their own words? "Repeat after me. "My weight is not the problem. "Society's problem about
weight is the problem." Lindo lists eight myths
surrounding obesity in the book, beginning with what is called, "The Death by Fat Myth." - We hear in the news all the
time about an obesity epidemic and how people are dying of obesity. And what we see is that
it's just not true. It's just not true. It's just not true. It's just not true. (playful music) (ambulance sirens wailing) - What is officially the
biggest health crisis in American history. - More than 200,000 doctors
have backed a report tonight, calling for urgent
action to combat obesity. - Nutritionists say obesity
is the biggest threat to public health. In the last 30 years, obesity rates for kids have tripled. - It can lead to a number
of health conditions such as high blood pressure, liver disease and even cancer. - One in three Americans
pets are now obese, think about that. - Yes, unfortunately you have heard right. Lindo Bacon outright denies that people are dying of obesity, despite the mountain
of evidence scientific and anecdotal suggesting otherwise. - What most studies show is that people considered
overweight and mildly or moderately obese
live at least as long as or longer than people
deemed normal weight. The data, a little more
complicated at the extremes of underweight or obesity, so I won't get into that here. - So what Lindo is referring to here is what's called the obesity paradox, the discovery that in some studies, overweight and mildly
obese people were found to have lived as long as
normal weight individuals. And in some instances, overweight people were actually
found to have lived longer. The most famous example
of this is a meta-analysis from 2013 which tracked
2.8 million people, done by Katherine Flegal. Lindo decides that this one
data point is satisfactory enough evidence to say this, "Science is clear, "body fat is not the killer
it's made out to be." But is that a true statement? Is the science clear? - Does fat kill? Let's look at the facts. - First off, plenty of other studies have found the exact opposite. That people in the normal
weight category fare best and for every deviation beyond that, you're shaving years off your life. Second, the prevailing opinion is that the obesity paradox can be explained away by various biases in the research. And the reason it's a paradox is because researchers are confused at why it would even be there. And they're scrambling
to try and explain it because obesity has a long
history of being correlated with so many different types of disease. This has actually happened before with something called
the smoker's paradox, where it was found that in some studies, for some strange reason, smoking seemed to impart some
sort of survival advantage. It was shown to lower risk
of death after certain types of heart attacks, as well as decrease
your risk of Parkinson's and knee replacement surgery. In both instances doctors and
researchers were really trying to explain the results
as quickly as they could, because they knew that if this kind of information made its way into the media and got distorted to suggest that, okay, this means that smoking is
healthy or obesity is healthy, that it would be detrimental
to public health. Dr. Sadiya Kahn, a cardiologist at Northwestern University
noticed this effect in his practice. The obesity paradox
caused a lot of confusion and potential damage because we know there are cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular risks
associated with obesity. I get a lot of patients who ask, why do I need to lose weight
if research says I'm going to live longer? I tell them that losing weight
doesn't just reduce the risk of developing heart disease but also other diseases like cancer. Our data shows you'll live longer and healthier at a normal weight. Given this confusion, it's safe to say that it's not appropriate and even dangerous to suggest that obesity doesn't kill people. The fact that the obesity
paradox exists isn't sufficient to say that obesity isn't healthy, just like the smoker's
paradox isn't sufficient to say that smoking is healthy. In reality, life expectancy
is one data point among a sea of data points. And we can't use it to say, hey, that means being obese is healthy then. And truthfully, you can't
use it to say the opposite, that it means that obesity is unhealthy. It is one piece of a bigger picture, a bigger picture that still suggests that being obese is terrible for you. Now, despite the fact that, as I've said, there's a lot to this. There's a lot to the discussion
of the obesity paradox. In Lindo's book this section is only about two paragraphs long when we remove the little nod
to NAAFA and fat acceptance. Meaning that Lindo wanted to leave it as if it was self-evident that this meant that obesity didn't
reduce life expectancy. No mention of the biases, nothing like that. - Okay, so we don't have evidence that fat is the killer
it's made out to be, you may be thinking, but it clearly causes disease. Does it? Does it? - Okay, so before we unpack this point, we need to stop and
talk about the wording. - So we don't have evidence that fat is the killer
it's made out to be, you may be thinking. - We do have evidence
that fat kills people. We have years of evidence. We have mountains of evidence. You absolutely cannot say
that we don't have evidence. You can maybe say it's not conclusive but you can under no circumstances say, we don't have evidence, not when the prevailing medical opinion is that obesity kills people. - Obesity on its own contributes
to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in the
United States every year. And if we factor in its
contributions to all of the major chronic diseases, the number is staggering. - It's one thing to support
a controversial hypothesis, to believe it to be true, and to present it properly, that is totally fine. It's quite another thing to present your opinion as known fact, as if any sane person
looking at the research would come to the same
conclusion that you are. If you're going to put forth
a controversial opinion, you need to prove it. You can't just act like it's self-evident because you're a researcher. This is a pattern for Lindo. I originally wanted this
section to be breaking down how the obesity paradox
is wrong and blah, blah, blah, but there's literally
not enough time given how glib and problematic
everything that comes out of Lindo Bacon's mouth is. And I think it's important
that we do spend some time on this because it's
being done intentionally to manipulate and deceive the audience. And in my opinion, it's outright negligent
to present yourself as some scientific authority and then present your
opinions as known facts. And now, Lindo is taking
it one step further and suggesting not only
does obesity not result in premature death, but that it also doesn't cause disease. If you convince a group of people that obesity is not
harmful and you're wrong, you're literally hurting people. Anyway, back to Lindo's main point. - But it clearly causes disease, does it? - In the book Lindo expounds
on this further by saying, "The idea that weight
plays a large causal role "in disease is also unproven. "Little evidence supports that
weight is the primary cause "of many diseases for which
it is routinely blamed, "except osteoarthritis, sleep
apnea and a few cancers." Yeah, if you don't mind a few cancers, losing your mobility and never being able to get a restful night's sleep
again without a CPAP machine then obesity is no big deal. - Where you have higher levels of obesity, you have higher levels of diabetes, you have higher levels of hypertension, you have higher levels of
coronary artery disease, you have higher levels of cancer, you have higher levels of dementia, you have higher levels
of degenerative arthritis and on and on it goes. - Does it? - Now, before we get
into this next section, we have to break down the
deceptive wording again. I already showed you the 200 diseases that obesity ups your risk of getting. It's impossible to argue that obesity doesn't result in disease. But Lindo intentionally said, primary cause, here. Because cause is technically
impossible to prove with epidemiological studies, which is the type of study
used to track diseases and all that kind of
thing in a population. So yeah, Linda was right, it's not proven to be the primary cause, but that's more of a fact of epidemiology than it is suggestive of
anything about obesity. And as a scientist Lindo
was well aware of this. So Lindo is intentionally
speaking in a way so as to confuse the average person
reading this into thinking, oh well, that means that obesity
doesn't result in disease. And if you think about it, if Lindo stated what they
meant in more plain terms, it would be a really
pointless thing to argue. Yeah, of course we can't prove that with epidemiological studies, what's your point? The point is this whole section is meant to deceive people into thinking that obesity is not bad for you. - Obesity is a leading
predictor of health outcomes in the modern age, period, full stop. It's just a fact. It's a fact of epidemiology. - Anyway, back to the idea
that's being presented here. This idea is an offshoot of what's called the
metabolically healthy obese. Which is the idea that
people who are obese but their blood markers show
no signs of insulin resistance or prediabetes or hypertension, are healthy individuals despite
being technically obese. This is true. There are plenty of obese people whose metabolic health suggests that they are healthy right now, at this moment in time, if the definition of
health we're using here is that health is the absence
of disease, anyway. But unfortunately, when
we look at this group and how they fare long-term, it's often found that the
metabolically healthy obese at some point become
metabolically unhealthy. And among those who do manage to remain metabolically healthy, one study found that, "Compared with normal weight people "with no metabolic abnormalities, "people who were
metabolically healthy obese "had a 50% increased risk
of coronary heart disease, "a 7% increased risk of stroke "and a double risk of heart failure." While another study stated, "Obese persons are at increased risk "for adverse long-term outcomes, "even in the absence of
metabolic abnormalities, "suggesting that there
is no healthy pattern "of increased weight." I just plucked a couple of quotes there, but I reviewed many papers
to come to this conclusion. In an interview with Dr. Arya Sharma, founder and scientific
director of Obesity Canada, he agreed that someone who is obese can still
be metabolically healthy, even if they're outside
the normal weight range. But Sharma cautions that sooner or later, in most obese people, their weight will become a health problem. It really is no different than smoking. Not every smoker will suffer
a smoking-related disease, but enough of them will
that we need to warn people that this is dangerous. Just because you're not suffering from health problems
right now does not mean that you're not at an increased risk than if you were smaller. And I think it's this
flawed metabolically healthy obese idea that has led to this wave of, you can't tell a person's
health by their appearance, more than anything else. - Everyone is all of a sudden a doctor and they think they
can look at your photos and determine your
worth and your happiness and your perceived health. - In many instances this is true. Just because someone is of
normal weight does not mean that they live a healthy lifestyle or that they have a clean bill of health. But if someone weighs 300-plus
pounds like Tess Holliday and has no plans of even
acknowledging that it's a problem, then it is fair to say that your weight may indeed disqualify you from being considered healthy. And you can most definitely infer just from looking at them that at
their current state they are at an increased risk of disease. Now, does that mean you should say that kind of thing to people? No, of course not, that's really, really rude. But anyone suggesting that
there is some alternate universe where being 300-plus
pounds at 5'5 is healthy is hurting people whether
that's the intention or not. Just because your health
markers are not demonstrating in this exact moment that
you are not unhealthy, does not mean that they
will not in the future. It's like fat activists just
forget that we all get old. I don't know. (keyboard clicking) We are now entering the part of the video where I openly attack
Lindo Bacon's character. (Kiana chuckling) As I mentioned earlier, it seemed to me that Lindo
Bacon's presentation style was pretty frivolous
and oddly unscientific for someone who's making
such serious waves online. So who is Lindo bacon exactly? (relaxing banjo music) In November, 2014, an article appeared in
the "Chicago Tribune", titled, can you be overweight and healthy? Now, in this article Lindo
puts forth various ideas and the other doctors pretty much just take turns shutting her down. But the real T happened afterwards. James Fell, the journalist
who wrote the article for the "Chicago Tribune" wrote an article on his website telling a little bit more of the backstory to the, quote, challenging interview
that he had with Lindo. And as a result of this, Lindo Bacon actually
complained about this article to the "Chicago Tribute"
until they issued a correction and then promptly tweeted, "No, I don't endorse much attributed to me "in "Chicago Trib". "Let's call for responsible journalism." James Fell then sent a
reply reminding Lindo that I had a voice recording
of our conversation and that the quotes were
accurate and in context. Upon finding out that he had receipts and that Lindo could be exposed, they wrote two apology emails immediately. So the reason I felt it appropriate
to include this story is that it is quite suggestive
of the type of person that Lindo Bacon is. And in particular, it demonstrates that Lindo has
a history of making a claim and then retracting it
when it doesn't paint them in the best light. The technique Lindo likes to employ, in my opinion, of course, is called Doublespeak. And actually, the YouTube channel, what I've learned and I
did an entire video on it. - Doublespeak is language
designed to evade responsibility, make the unpleasant appear pleasant, the unattractive appear attractive. Basically it's language
designed to mislead while pretending not to. - Lindo is constantly
making these statements that could be construed
as having double meanings. The statement, "Little evidence supports "that weight is the primary
cause of many diseases "for which it is routinely blamed." Is intended to mean you can't
conclusively prove causality with epidemiological studies and also excess fat
does not cause disease. Just like the statement, "The science is clear, "body fat is not the killer
it's made out to be." Means, the link between mortality and obesity isn't as clear cut as the media portrays it to be. And also, excess body
fat doesn't kill people. By speaking in this way, Lindo can simultaneously convince someone who doesn't know how
epidemiological studies work that obesity is not dangerous, but also save their ass in case someone that does takes a look at this and says, well, why would you say that? Especially when the link between obesity and disease is so well-documented
that there's not a lot of room to argue that. - Period, full stop. It's just a fact. It's a fact of epidemiology. - Lindo's actions demonstrate to me that health is not the primary
goal of Health in Every Size. If this were true there'd be no need to hide behind vague language
and cherry-picked data. You would fully explain your points, if only out of passion for
the fact that you believe that this is true in that fat people were
being unfairly vilified for something that is not unhealthy. And this certainly helps to explain why Lindo's mission statement does not mention health at all. Linda is fostering a more just world, not a healthy one. Why, because Health At Every
Size is not a health movement, it is entirely political. Tess Holliday wants you to
believe and probably wants to believe herself that she's healthy. Lindo Bacon and Health
At Every Size want you to believe that obesity is healthy. And "Cosmo" and every other
woke corporate entity don't care what you believe as long
as you buy their stuff. They all have very different
reasons for doing what they do, but the result is the same. People are truly beginning to believe that obesity is not very dangerous, despite the pile of suggesting otherwise and the very flimsy evidence
to suggest the opposite. These women find Tess
and they feel validated because she looks beautiful, even at 300 pounds Then Health At Every Size
chimes in and tells them that, well, not only can you be beautiful, but you can be healthy at that weight. Being morbidly obese doesn't
mean you're unhealthy or have a problem with food, you're just built that way
and it's only diet culture and fatphobia telling you otherwise. And this is a very seductive alternative after spending a lifetime trying
and failing to lose weight and not feeling like
your body is beautiful or worthy or anything like that. And you can see why otherwise
rational people can get pulled in to this alternate reality
where they're being lied to by Health At Every
Size and Tess Holliday. Oh my God, that was a long one. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. It was quite the undertaking, more than I thought it would be. I actually researched obesity for two weeks before starting this video, and then I literally didn't
use any of that research in this video. So at least I'm confident that
obesity is bad for you now. Anyway, I hope to have
another video out for you guys in less than five weeks. (Kiana chuckling) So I will see you in the next one. And if you were watching this far and you are not subscribed, yeah, hit the Subscribe button and Like, and yeah, thank you for watching. See you in the next one. (Kiana chuckling) - [Group] Researchers imply
that being fat is a cause of certain things, but that's not what their studies show, a big mistake that is made
is not differentiating between factors that are correlative and those that are causative. (relaxing upbeat music)
I don't know if this video has already been posted. Kiana Docherty is a formerly obese woman who makes inspiring videos about weightloss and lifestyle. This documentary about HAES and Tess Holliday is interesting and well made, and I thought it would fit this community.
(I almost fell for this crap myself, and r/fatlogic has been a great help for me losing weight and changing my view about both health and food).
All of her videos are really good.
I’ve seen this previously and agree it’s good. If you haven’t seen it yet, she also did a video on the Slaton Sisters breaking down why one lost weight and the other didn’t. I actually took some good points away about mental attitude and the importance of how you speak to/about yourself and your challenges when you have something to overcome.
This video was very well constructed and provided not just peer-reviewed evidence, but also, and arguably more important, how these people get sucked into HAES. It’s not bad to want validation, acceptance, or community. Humans strive for these yet we have HAES utilizing (mostly) women’s insecurities and ignorance. That and the whole “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality is akin to cult mentality.
Glad the mods finally allowed this video to be posted.
I wasn’t expecting to stick around for the full hour of this video, but I ended up not being able to turn it off. Very well spoken and presented.
This YouTuber is underrated, thank you for sharing.
I just finished the whole video and it was great, I admire her ability to stay calm, i feel like I'd get angry and get real mean real fast.
This video really made me wonder - what's in it for Lindo Bacon? Why do they say and write the things they do? It's so manipulative, and it doesn't appear to be for any particular reason.