Cosmo Promotes Yet More Self Destructive Behavior and We're All Supposed To Cheer

Cosmo cover crop from BuzzFeed tweet https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/1034957873703473152

At one time Cosmo was where women went to get tips on Seventy Three Types of Monkey Sex That Will Drive Your Man Crazy On the First Date and fashion advice and…wait for it…dieting. The covers were graced by a wide array of hotties in various states of undress. It nearly made going to the grocery store worthwhile just by standing in the checkout line. Of course, with Cosmo, you really couldn’t even buy respectability by claiming you “just read the articles.” Those days, my friends, are gone:

Phew, I’m literally a COSMO GIRL!! Can’t believe I’m saying that! 😭😭
Thank you @CosmopolitanUK for this incredible opportunity 🙏🏻 If I saw a body like mine on this magazine when I was a young girl, it would have changed my life 💕
Issue hits stands 8/31! 🎉🎉🎉🎉 pic.twitter.com/sBYWY7nEwZ

— Tess Holliday 🥀 (@Tess_Holliday) August 29, 2018

https://twitter.com/GarbageHuman_/status/1035169604505673728

Tess Holliday Is Rocking A Swimsuit On The Cover Of Cosmo UK https://t.co/twzkS8aWXJ

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) August 30, 2018

Rocked? YGTBFKM. Tested tensile strength? For sure. Rocked? No freakin way.

Piers Morgan is getting all kinds of hate for making some very basic observations:

Piers said, “As Britain battles an ever-worsening obesity crisis, this is the new cover of Cosmo. Apparently we’re supposed to view it as a ‘huge step forward for body positivity.’ What a load of old baloney. This cover is just as dangerous & misguided as celebrating size zero models.”

The comments are now pouring in … and so far he’s getting a lot of support for his position, although it’s mixed.

There’s one point of view that it’s clear body-shaming and it loses sight of the fact that Tess is happy in her skin. There are others who say it encourages people who have the ability to maintain a healthy weight to slide to their physical and mental detriment.

As for Tess, the Cosmo article is about her battling depression over her weight. She also opens up about being sexually assaulted when she was younger.

Tess posted the cover of the mag herself, saying she was proud of the way it looked and hoped it would change the attitude of young girls who might be ashamed of the way they look.

I understand that she has psychological issues–hell, don’t we all?–but just because she has issues doesn’t mean that I, or anyone else, wish to participate in them. I understand that she’s “happy in her skin,” heaven knows there is enough of it for several people to be happy in, but she has no reason to be gushing on about “body positivity” when she probably has high blood pressure (actually a very safe bet as it can be predicted based on waist:hip ratio) and is a prime candidate for Type II diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and all manner of other chronic health problems. She’s a poster child for a self-destructive and self-indulgent lifestyle coupled with an unlimited ability to delude herself to the fact that all she is doing is preparing the groundwork for hip and knee replacements before she dies of heart disease. What is worse than what she’s doing to herself is that she is deluding other young women into thinking that being morbidly obese is attractive (and there is a whole fetish, or so I understand, devoted to that so YMMV) and healthy. Whatever your view of the aesthetics, she is not healthy. She is no more an example of “body positivity” that a Skid Row wine-o.

What makes this so insane, is that not that long ago we went through a whole panic about how undernourished models and freakin Barbie dolls were leading young women into eating disorders. This woman has an eating disorder that is just as life threatening as anorexia or bulemia–perhaps more so because there is a significant body of evidence that indicates you can never undo the damage of being morbidly obese–and we’re supposed to be cheering her on.

If this be “body shaming,” so be it. Shame can sometimes be a good thing if it assists in modify self-destructive behavior.

I’ve lived long enough that fewer and fewer popular ideas are making sense to me. And I’ve concluded that they don’t make sense because the people pushing them are either nuts or they are psychopaths out to see how many credulous imbeciles they can get to follow their lead.