This is a great conversation to have, and your thoughts and so many of these comments make me so sad to think about. Weight (just as gender, race, job title, sexual orientation, ANYTHING other than just being a good person) should not be tied to self confidence and sense of self.

That being said, this is also a false focus to be looking at with regard to weight, as we now have much more data on what being overweight means to your health. As someone who worked for a decade in the healthcare industry I can tell you that being overweight is killing, disabling, and causing diseases to more people in our country than probably every other cause of these things combined.

If somebody were to smoke cigarettes and say “I just don’t want to be judged and I don’t want to be looked down upon for smoking” We as a society MIGHT say “fine, we won’t look down upon you”, but we will absolutely look at them and know that they are doing something harmful to themselves.

For some reason I think it is too taboo to be blunt about this with weight right now, and I think that reason is that weight is also so tied into the aforementioned confidence/pride/worthiness that it should not be. If we could just remove it’s tie to that, as the author suggests, we could discuss to real concerns of being overweight, which are not vanity and pride related.

Regardless, everyone can use a bit more compassion, empathy, and understanding.