Bill Maher And Joe Rogan Slam 'Body Positivity' As Toxic Health Craze
Joe Rogan and Bill Maher want to bring the reckoning on obesity that America needs.
On Saturday's episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan opened the topic when complaining about the medical establishment's response to COVID-19.
"First of all, you should be telling people they have to lose weight," Rogan said. "It was the number one co-morbidity; it was a giant factor."
Indeed, a systemic meta-analysis of 75 studies that probed the link between obesity and severe outcomes from coronavirus infection found obese people were 50 percent more likely to die. Obese patients were also 73 percent more likely to end up in intensive care, and 113 percent more likely to be hospitalized. The study was published in August 2020, just six months into national lockdowns.
Government officials, however, responded to the virus by shutting down gyms and wellness centers. According to the Global Health & Fitness Association, a quarter of all health and fitness facilities permanently closed within two years of the initial lockdowns
Maher mentioned that "some 75 percent of the people who were hospitalized or died were obese.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in March 2021, 78 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were overweight or obese.
"But in this country, we're so through the looking glass on the obesity issue that even mentioning it is some sort of a hate crime," Maher said.
Maher went on to trash the contemporary "body positivity" movement for hindering honest conversations about health and weight.
The crisis has led celebrities who've been models for plus-size audiences to now face routine backlash for losing weight. Adele, Rebel Wilson, and Lizzo have suffered fan blowback for either shedding excess pounds or even attempting to do so.
"There is nothing positive health-wise," Maher said, about obesity. "Now, if you think it's beautiful, great! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but science, is not."
The American obesity epidemic is now at a tipping point where 42 percent of adults are categorically obese. The CDC reports nearly 1 in 5 children aged 2-19 have already met the same metabolic milestone. Obese people carry far greater risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and many types of cancer.
In their podcast discussion, Rogan emphasized the body positivity movement was also one-directional.
"You know who doesn't get any of that body positivity s**t though? Is men," Rogan said. "Nobody gives a f**k about men."
Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is the latest example of the movement’s sexism wherein plus-size Ken was absent from the film. Some words on the movie published in The Federalist this summer:
Barbie herself, presented as an unrealistic version of a 1950s housewife, lives in a female-dominated fantasyland complete with the neighbors of a diverse California utopia featuring all the identities on the victimized hierarchy. Barbie’s black, Barbie’s trans, Barbie’s Asian, weird, and even disabled. Of course, Barbie’s also plus-size. But for their male partners in paradise, diversity was an afterthought.
Plus-size Ken had no place in Barbieland. And the Kens who did were mocked by their female counterparts as ultra-narcissistic for their commitment to fitness. Stereotypical Ken himself, played by Ryan Gosling with washboard abs, was only happy when validated by Barbie.
Meanwhile in Philadelphia, pioneers of the pro-fat movement will convene an October conference organized under the banner of "body positivity." The speaker line-up features an all-women list of plus-size influencers who will participate in a series of panels on "fatphobia."
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Photo: Youtube, PowerfulJRE Bill Maher on Obesity Being Treated as a Disease
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