Fat Can Kill

Published 3.3.2026: Gabriella Lascano is back in the news, speaking to the New York Times. I remember when she made her first comments, and the backlash that they inspired. The Times video does replay that first video in part.

At this point, I’ve watched a number of reactions to this video, but I’ve decided to put down my thoughts. I thought there was an earlier piece I wrote about the original video, but I couldn’t find it. I probablly took notes and never published it…

I suppose I could look for the notes, but basically I agreed with her then and I agree with her now. Except that I don’t think that obese people are ever healthy. I think there’s a big defference between being up to 100 lbs overweight (45 kilos) and being 300 lbs overweight (136 kilos). And there’s a height factor too. As a vertically challenged human female, I was having iss ues being 35 lbs overweight (15.8 kilos) let alone 100 lbs.

At my heaviest, I was barely considered class one obese, and still I felt the effects. I’m 30ish pounds lighter now, but still considered overweight by the BMI (body mass index). I have recomped my body a bit by lifting weights (with a trainer) but I’d still like to lose another 10 pounds (4.5 kilos).

I track nothing, and I want to track nothing. I do meal prep my breakfasts and have a decent idea of how many calories are in that. I know that a calorie deficit is required to lose weight, and between what I eat and how I exercise (I added aerobic activity principally for the calorie burn), I think i have a small calorie deficit. I try to get more steps in to up my NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) but overall, I don’t know what my total calorie burn is.

In 2024, Gabrielle Lascano gave a TED talk where she basically backed down from her position. So I’m glad that in the newest video she is more direct. She gives more history as to why she recorded the first video, not sure if she gave the same history in the TED talk.

Basically, a plus-size friend died, and a week later another plus-size influence died, and that’s why she made the recording. I remember the backlash against her, which is also covered in the newer video (linked above). The timing of the video is interesting, because fat acceptance seems to be fading in importance. So-called Body-Positivity (I called it fat body positivity, because weight was only allowed to change in one direction.)

And to prove the point: Here is the reaction by Virgie Tovar to the video. Tovar’s point is that there are two body positives, one is closer to fat acceptance than the other (HAES or Health at Every Size) is no longer invoked since the shunning of Lindo Bacon. It was always a stupid movement, but Bacon used the method to lose weight, which in the end helped doom her.

Tovar thinks that one half of body positivity is self improvement (that’s the part that Lascano believes in) versus the fat acceptance side, to which Tovar belongs. Tovar is fighting a losing battle as obesity can be cured, either with diet and exercise or with drugs. Tovar is terrified of GLP-1s (glucagon like peptide ones) because they are making the lie that fat activists spout (that weight loss is impossible) obvious and many, many people want to take them.

Tovar’s version of body positivity is one that I can’t support. I would never mistreat a fat person, but I’m also not going to hide the fact that excess weight on a body has negatvie health implications. The body compensates until it cannot, whether you are starving yourself or over eating.

Sustainable weight loss is possible, I’m proof of that. Weight loss is not synonymous with anorexia… which is an argment that so-called anti-diet dietitians have started to make. Weight loss is not eradication, you’re not dead at the end of it, you just aren’t fat.