I’m writing a much longer piece about this for whatever my memoir ends up being, but this is something everyone needs to know.
Your “concern” for fat peoples’ health is actually both fat phobic AND ableist. Health is not something that every body at any size is able to achieve. Setting the bar for worthiness at being healthy is setting the bar impossibly high for many thin people, fat people, and other people in between who experience chronic illness. Someone shouldn’t have to be healthy to be worthy of basic human decency. Someone shouldn’t have to be below a certain weight to be worthy of basic human dignity. Your health policing of fat people doesn’t help and MANY studies have shown the harmful effects of anti-fat bias. Many of these studies even point to anti-fat bias as being the cause for health problems, rather than being fat being the cause for health problems. Being fat isn’t the problem- fat phobia is. The problem is a society that is willing to see a person as less than just because of their weight. The problem is covert and overt fat phobia. Next time you think you want to mention something about someone’s appearance to them, ask yourself if it’s something they could change in five minutes. If it isn’t- keep your opinions to yourself.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fat-is-not-the-problem-fat-stigma-is/
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” 