Poor Ashley Graham-- she can't win for losing -- weight that is! The plus-sized "American's Next Top Model" has been shamed for being too fat and too thin. She has also been praised for body-loving in obesity and for weight loss. Is that just down to a fickle public's changing ideas on sexy? You surely can't please all folks all of the time. And Internet body-shaming is a new national pastime. But the story on weight and body size is a work in progress. Definitions of healthy are changing. Here's the skinny on fat, using Ashley Graham for a model.
Ashley Graham dilemma
Graham was the first "fat" top model on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover. This provoked comment and criticism. Some felt a plus-sized model set a bad example and others a good example. Like "Top Model" creator Tyra Banks and Mo'Nique, Graham preached a message of body-loving and that fat is phat! Mo'Nique actually wrote books body-shaming skinny women! Then, like Mo'Nique and Tyra Banks, Ashley Graham lost weight and the word hypocrite was bandied about. That hypocrisy seems to drive a large part of the "body-shaming." Maybe folks weren't saying they were too skinny (Mo'Nique and Graham are still technically obese). It's just that these women changed their tune. And now still-overweight fans will have to look honestly at their own weight, now as the "fat and proud" cheerleaders lost weight.
Obese equals unhealthy?
Supermodel Cheryl Tiegs got seven levels of Hades for suggesting that Ashley Graham's weight was unhealthy. Clearly, scale number doesn't add up to clothing size, body size, fat to muscle ratio or obesity lifestyle diseases. Skinny people have diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. And Graham has the healthier pear-shaped body size with large breasts and bottom which make her waist look tiny.
Belly fat is harder to hide and usually considered less sexy than butt and thigh fat. Nevertheless, the heavier you get (wherever you gain) the faster you gain. And no doctor will advise carrying 100 or even 50 extra pounds. And then there's the question is it fat-shaming to call fat fat or to acknowledge that it is unhealthy? Tiegs retracted her comment but it looks like she was right, or at least Graham thought she was. That Graham lost weight says she was concerned that fat is ugly or unhealthy -- or both.
