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Cosmopolitan Cover Announces: Plus Size Women Are ‘Healthy’

Cosmopolitan is facing backlash for suggesting being overweight is healthy.

“This is healthy!” reads the cover of the February 2021 UK Cosmopolitan magazine, which features plus size models and an article that argues that “wellness” does not mean “one size fits all.”

“‘Healthy’ can be a loaded word. We asked these women to open up about their personal journeys to reclaim ‘healthy’ as their own,” explained Cosmopolitan, which features the stories of “11 women who prove wellness isn’t ‘one size fits all,’” some of whom are plus-size models and influencers.

One cover featured influencer Callie Thorpe, who says that she is part of the “body neutrality movement” — a movement that doesn’t focus on one’s own appearance.

“Plus-size people often feel like they can’t be part of the wellness space. We are trolled for being fat, then can feel excluded from exercise because our bodies don’t fit the narrative,” said Thorpe, who has more than 250,000 followers on her Instagram account.

The women’s fashion magazine also featured yoga teacher Jessamyn Stanley, who has 450,000 followers on Instagram, says that yoga “has absolutely nothing to do with what you look like.”

 

“When I first started I was often the only fat person at classes, and frequently the only Black person, so it was very alienating,” said Stanley.

However the yoga teacher added there are still some drawbacks. “I do experience fatphobic comments,” said Stanley. “Just yesterday someone said, ‘Do you really like your body? If I had that body I wouldn’t like it.’”

Obesity has been found to increase the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms and impair the body’s ability to create antibodies which causes the overweight population of all age groups to be more susceptible to mutations of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Science Magazine reported in September, “dozens of studies have reported that many of the sickest COVID-19 patients have been people with obesity.” According to The Federalist, one study reported in the Science Magazine in August, found “overweight patients who contracted COVID-19 were 113 percent more likely to land in the hospital than patients of a healthy weight. Obese patients were 74 percent more likely to end up in intensive care and were 48 percent more likely to die.”

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About Catherine Smith

Catherine Smith is a newcomer to Washington D.C. She met and married an American journalist and moved to D.C. from the U.K. She graduated with a B.A. in Graphics, Media, and Communications and worked in design and retail in the U.K.