"Reality is quite different": Bill Maher's comments on obesity leaves the internet divided 

On Friday, August 5, comedian and HBO’s Real Time talk show host Bill Maher slammed USA’s fat acceptance movement. Later, the TV personality took to his Twitter account and referred to the issue as a “disturbing trend.”

He uploaded the entire segment of his show, where he rallied against the movement, and in the post’s caption, Maher said:

“There’s a disturbing trend going on in America these days with rewriting science to fit ideology. We’ve gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration.”

The 66-year-old political commentator further said how the issue has escalated to being a national security threat. He cited a 2019 New York Times article that stated how one-third of the applicants were rejected from military recruitment for being overweight. However, Maher’s comments have received a lot of criticism since the show's live telecast.

One such tweet (from user Ronnie Toddywala/@ironman1125) called out the host for being inconsiderate of people suffering from obesity. The tweet mentioned:

“Reality is quite different. Obesity is a function of genes, stress and poverty too not only excessive eating.”

---

What did Bill Maher say about the USA's obesity issue?

In the monologue, Bill Maher cited a New York Times piece from 2019 and said:

“Military recruitment is down by the most since the end of the draft, because mainly 17 to 24 year olds are too fat to fight.”

Maher further proceeded to label the fat acceptance movement as ‘Orwellian’. He insinuated that the positivity behind such a movement encourages and describes “what's not healthy”. The host made another analogy and told his audience that people “can get away with anything bad (in regards to health).” Moments later, Maher questioned whether they had ever seen a 90-year-old fat person, to further prove his point.

He said:

“We’ve gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration. That’s new. That is new. To view letting yourself go as a point of pride? We used to at least try and be fit and healthy and society praised those who succeeded. Now the term body positivity is used to mean, ‘I’m perfect the way I am because I’m me.’ It’s Orwellian how often positivity is used to describe what’s not healthy!”

He further said:

“And if you're in any way participating in this joyful celebration of gluttony that goes on now, you have blood on your hands, full stop...You can make believe you're fighting some great social justice battle for a besieged minority, but what you're really doing is enabling addicts — which I thought we decided was bad.”

He later recalled several health disorders caused by obesity, which included the likes of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and more. Bill Maher stated that obesity “is horrible for the immune system.”

---

Netizens react to Bill Maher’s comments on obesity

While a legion of tweets supported Maher and defended the host for his statements, other sections of the internet criticized how he expressed his opinion about the US population's obesity issue.

Most other tweets attempted to clarify that Bill Maher’s monologue did not slam obese people but rather criticized the acceptance of obesity which, according to him, is harmful.

While Bill Maher’s statements are being debated, it must be noted that obesity is a rising health care issue in the USA. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36.5 percent of US adults are obese. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases states that 32.5 percent of adults are overweight.