Opinion: A couple of comments you should read instead of Louise Wallace's fat-phobic nonsense

Louise Wallace demonstrates how much she knows about what she's talking about. Photo / The AM Show

OPINION:

Earlier this week, former Real Housewife of Auckland Louise Wallace made some seriously awful comments about "overweight" people that I will refrain from quoting here because, frankly, the world does not need those repeated anywhere.

The good news is that, judging by the backlash, a lot of us know that, despite lots of work still ahead, huge progress has been done in terms of understanding how bodies work and what "healthy" actually means. There have also been some great strides made in the fashion industry, which for decades has propagated the idea that skinny is some sort of ideal to aim for.

That's the thing about Wallace's trash comments: they don't exist in a vacuum. There are entire industries that exist and continue to thrive solely on making people feel inadequate. We can get mad at Wallace, we can get mad at the people platforming her views and we should also get mad at the industries who insist on perpetuating the same stupid standards that lead people like Wallace to think they have a point (which, to be clear, they don't).

"Having been in the fashion industry for as long as I have I am stoked to see more brands finally recognising that women are diverse and we all have different body shapes," the fashion designer wrote on social media.

"It's taken years to get to this stage we are at now! We still have a long way to go but it's a million times better than where it used it be," she added.

"Do you know how amazing I feel to see a body like mine in fashion ads and on websites? I don't think she will ever understand the toll the fashion industry has had on mine and so many others' mental health over the years! The pressure to conform to this unrealistic expectation of beauty. It's a joke."

The designer was not the only one to slam Wallace's comments, with champion shot putter Dame Valerie Adams saying, "So size 12 is normal but size 18 is not [punch emoji]. Uppercut yourself because what you're saying is disgusting."

Wallace replied Saturday saying she was asked her opinion about the country's "appalling stats on obesity and I gave it". She said she could have lied and said they were just something we have to live with but she chose to do the latter. She had received many "wonderful and inspiring" messages from people who decided to begin a weight-loss journey in order to live longer.

"If you are going to stigmatise 'fat' women in fashion and base their health on their size I think you better discuss the eating disorders, size pressures and ill health issues surrounding 'skinny' models too.

"There are ways to approach health issues and that ain't it.

"Maybe we need to deal to mental health, maybe we need to sort our social issues, maybe people are suffering because the cost of living is so high and people cannot afford good food, maybe because of these costs people are having to work longer hours and cannot exercise ... That interview was an embarrassment."

Another comment worth highlighting came from activist Shaneel Lal, who wrote: "Being fat is not synonymous to being unhealthy. If anything, the modelling industry has the opposite effect on people. It starved models - now that's unhealthy.

"We've spent years hating fat people and it hasn't fixed anything. Maybe it's time we realise fat people aren't the problem, but instead our western beauty ideals."

Instead of highlighting Wallace's comments, what is important to reinforce is that a person's weight and size are not reliable measures of health. You simply cannot tell anything about a person's health by the size on their clothing labels.

What's also important to note is that there are socio-economic aspects and deeply problematic systemic issues relating to the food we consume in the western world today. While there are individual solutions to individual issues, it is not okay to put the blame on individuals for problems caused by the capitalist structure we currently live in. You cannot create a society that conditions people to live a certain way, then blame them for the way they live.

And it's also important to know that there is a whole lot of privilege embedded in the idea that anyone could just "grow their own food", as Wallace suggested at one point.

Wallace is not a doctor nor a researcher and has absolutely no qualifications to talk about these issues. She also does not get to define what "normal" means.

Being overweight is not a personal or a moral failure. Suggesting that we put gaffer tape on people's mouths to stop them eating, on the other hand ...