Tess Holliday promotes the wrong kind of beauty
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CORN DOG AND CLEAVAGE: Tess Holliday shows off her immense cleavage and large body while devouring a corn dog in Walt Disney World.
June 16, 2015
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The internet and beyond exploded when Tess Holliday became the first size 22 plus-sized model to be on the cover of “People” magazine.
Some argue that this is a step in the right direction, that the modeling industry is expanding and showing all body types. Unfortunately, the explosion of the plus-sized industry has instead split the modeling world in two.
Now, the plus-sized industry has a new face, “Tess Holliday,” and she is going to mess everything up.
There is a line when it comes to weight. There are people who are naturally curvy and bigger, and they have learned to embrace that. There are people who are naturally thin. Then there are the people who take their weight to the extreme and fall under unhealthily skinny or, in Holliday’s case, unhealthily fat.
Holliday is 5’5″ and 280 pounds with a BMI of 46.6. The normal BMI ranges from 18. 5 to 24.9. An obese BMI is 30 and up. Holliday is 16.6 over the obese BMI.
It is 2015 and we have shifted from putting anorexic models on covers to now putting obese models on covers. WHERE IS THE BALANCE???
Instead of promoting anorexia and eating disorders, we are now promoting obesity and unhealthy eating habits on the opposite spectrum.
America, the home of obesity, should not be normalizing or promoting obesity. By publicizing obese models, we are saying that it is okay to live unhealthy lifestyles.
Holliday, found on Instagram, has taken to social media to express her body confidence. Along with sharing pictures of her new tattoos of Miss Piggy and Hello Kitty, she also shares pictures of her eating lots and lots of food.
I fully support showing off all types of women and showing off body confidence. However, we should not be promoting unhealthy people with unhealthy lifestyles. If you need three people to help you stand up, there is a problem.
The truth is, Tess Holliday is fat and unhealthy. The only reason she became famous is because she is fat, and the media gives her a free pass because of it.
Recently, Holliday made a racial statement, saying, “Black men love me,” but we never heard about it. Instead, we hear about her #effyourbeautystandards campaign, which is essentially body shaming skinny girls.
It goes past being just fat; Holliday is unhealthy and borderline arrogant. She posts pictures of herself binging on corn dogs and candy and pushes the fact that she is fat so much that when you look at her, that is all you see. She shows no respect for herself or her body whatsoever.
“I am fat, so it is kind of silly to get mad about it,” Holliday said recently.
I agree that she is fat, but that is not the reason people are mad. People are mad because she is dangerously unhealthy and should not be glorified because of it.
“Tess Holliday is not a beautiful plus-sized model; she is unhealthy and not a good role model for anyone. There is a distinct difference between loving your curves and flaunting your fat and sick lifestyle,” says a freshman.
It seems as though Holliday is getting a free pass in life and all this attention because of her size. There are millions of prettier girls who can be featured in magazines, but instead they chose the 280 pound model who continues to abuse her body.
“The only reason she is famous is because of her size. She is not even a good person. If the modeling industry wants to show off diverse groups of people, they should show off all body types, not just the extremes,” says another freshman.
Tess Holliday does not deserve to be worshiped by the media. Instead, the media should be focused on displaying all types of women who respect their bodies and themselves.
How do you feel about Tess Holliday?
She’s not unhealthily overweight. She works out, was healthy enough to conceive and give birth. Not all fat people are unhealthy and not all skinny people are healthy. She works out, but she still eats a lot so she’s fat. The end. God why do people hate confident women so much?
John Reply:
June 17th, 2015 at 12:41 PM
Did you even read the op-ed? Your comment is shooting at the wrong target. She’s glorifying her overindulgent, under-active lifestyle, which is pouring gas on the fire of obesity that’s burning through this country, as well as healthcare dollars.
“God why do people hate confident women so much?”
Again, not relevant to the discussion at hand. Someone could confidently be walking into a street without looking for traffic, and they’d still be a moron who’s trying to influence people to make bad decisions.
On the subject of “healthy”, Holliday clearly isn’t as physically able as people within, even just outside, the normal BMI ranges. (Yes, normal. Normal isn’t the same thing as “average”. The average BMI in the US is on the higher end of the spectrum because this country is too damn fat.) She needed a few people to help her get up in the GIF posted, the video at the bottom has a couple women apparently helping her into an article of clothing.
Beyond even the ‘physically able’ bit, is where obesity encounters physics. All that extra fat and flesh needs oxygen. On a massive leap of logic, I’m going to assume that Holliday doesn’t have unusually efficient lungs, or unusually strong bones. That means that her lungs will be straining to provide the oxygen her body needs, and that her bones will have to deal with mechanical stresses that human bones were never designed to support.
Above are two examples, any doctor hell, even any med school student worth their salt could easily give more examples about how simply having too much excess adipose tissue, regardless of lifestyle, has significant impacts on health, well-being, and overall quality of life. Holliday is glorifying all of this, drawing people to capitulate and accept something about themselves they absolutely can change, but simply won’t. I’ve changed it, myself. After I left highschool to attend Uni, I changed my habits – ate less, exercised more, as well as walking damn near everywhere (a perk of the small town here). Since I started attending here, I’ve lost 55lbs. Quit your complaining.
patrick Reply:
June 18th, 2015 at 1:45 PM
Not unhealthily overweight? Since when can you tell health by looking at someone? I can say I worked out to “I did 5 squats” if I only did 5 squats and called it a work out would it count? Lets see her run and how far she gets.
Stephanie Reply:
June 23rd, 2015 at 12:11 AM
Uh…sorry, but she’s most definitely unhealthy. It’s impossible to be that fat and not be at a huge risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. If it hasn’t hit her yet, it will in the near future.
Well Jeff, because there’s absolutely nothing healthy about requiring the help of 3 people to stand on your own two feet. The causative link between obesity and diabetes, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, edema, and a slew of other preventable health problems is undeniable. Saying someone can have a BMI of 46.6 and still be healthy is on par with denying climate change is occurring. It’s simply impossible.
By your logic, if I smoke two packs of cigarettes every day, but work out and don’t yet have cancer, I’m perfectly healthy.
Come on man.
Thank you for this. As an obese person, nothing motivates me more to change my habits and take care of my health than seeing this woman’s lies. Fat apologists will cry “confidence jealousy” but I think that’s just kneejerk whiteknighting. I have been very fat and I have been thin and everything in between. Amazingly, health problems like asthma, hypertension and joint problems go away when I lose weight. So I find it very hard to believe when people tell me an obese person is perfectly healthy. Maybe they can get away with it in their 20s, but decades of carrying around 50 pounds or more of excess weight will take a toll. I truly don’t understand why it’s okay for the world to demand intervention when a public figure is very thin, but we applaud when someone is morbidly obese. I’m fat and Tess Munster is not my role model. I think she’s a liar and what she promotes is dangerous to young women. If she was promoting “confidence while shooting up heroin” nobody would be pandering to her ego.
She can’t even dress herself! Childbirth isn’t a gauge of health either, people with cancer, or AIDS, or missing limbs, or whatever affliction you can think of can probably give birth. And sure, some nasty people can’t deal with seeing something they don’t like, but there are gradually more and more people speaking out against the UNHEALTHY PROMOTION (to make more money) of her UNHEALTHY lifestyle. If someone stuffs their face all day and walks for 5 minutes, deeming that exercise, IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT SHE IS HEALTHY, or that she “works out”. I’m not going to be the person that asks for proof of her exercise or diet because in my eyes, how you feel about yourself is a private thing and should be respected BUT THE EMPIRICAL, SCIENTIFIC, CLEAR PROOF is right there. SHE IS OBESE. YOU DON’T GET OBESE by bad luck. You get obese by not being able to stop eating.
patrick Reply:
June 18th, 2015 at 1:47 PM
You get obese by choosing not to stop eating. Fixed that for ya.
To the other response:
It doesn’t take 12 years of post-secondary schooling and a Doctorate to understand that being obesity is NOT HEALTHY. I saw a video where she needed help standing after kneeling down for a photo. She was literally too obese to stand up on her own. That is NOT HEALTHY. You’re right, you can’t always tell if someone is unhealthy just by looking at them, but the immense amount of research and data that has been compiled by professionals and doctors makes one thing clear: obesity will kill you. It puts you at much higher risk for a ton of other conditions such as diabetes, joint problems, increased risk of heart conditions, etc.
People don’t hate confident women, you’ve got to be doing some serious mental gymnastics to go from this article, which is criticising the glorification of an eating disorder (yes, overeating is an eating disorder) and an unhealthy lifestyle to “oh the writer just hates her.”
Okay all things aside, is that corn dog making anyone else hungry?
adviser Reply:
June 17th, 2015 at 8:48 PM
Me!!!
Yeah! If she hid her unhealthy lifestyle like all the girls who starve and hate themselves she’d be MUCH better.
Point is-our society has an EXTREMELY messed up relationship with health, beauty, and food. Period.