“If we offend you so much that you lose weight, I’m okay with that.”

Social media personality Nicole Arbour recently came under fire after releasing a six-minute rant including these words on her Youtube channel shaming fat people. With more than 200,000 followers on her channel, the video was quickly spread and became viral, receiving over 6 million views and backlash to the extent that her account was taken down for five days. Once restored, comments were disabled.

It sparked a debate over Twitter and caused both ‘#dearfatpeople’ and ‘#NicoleArbour‘ to become trending hashtags, with the majority of tweets shutting down her ignorant remarks.

“Fat-shaming is not a thing,” she said while smiling into the camera. “Fat people made that up.” Arbour continued, insisting that all those who are obese are in bad health. “You are killing yourself… I don’t feel bad for you because you are taking your body for granted.”

While it may at first seem as if her video was made with good intentions, fatshaming is so often used to thinly veil one’s own personal bias towards the heavier. Stating that one is only looking out for the health of others is an easy way to smokescreen bigotry and fatphobia, masking it under the guise of genuine concern while in reality only propelling one’s personal ideals forward. Whitney Way Thore, star of TLC’s “My Big Fat Fabulous Life,” responded to Arbour via YouTube, pointing out that “you don’t know whether that person has a medical condition that caused them to gain weight… you don’t know their mother just died. You don’t know if they’re depressed or suicidal or if they just lost 100 pounds.” She also took time to point out that fatshaming is an issue that many experience, especially women, and wrongfully so.

“Fatshaming… who came up with that? That’s… brilliant, yes, shame people who have bad habits until they… stop,” Arbour taunted. But while Arbour believes that this is a clear solution, a study published in the journal Obesity says otherwise. Those who have experienced discrimination against their weight are actually more likely to gain weight- leading to the conclusion that fatshaming is good for nothing but hurting feelings. Daanye Scott, a junior at ERHS, observed that “Shaming is never the way to go. You should never put someone down for the way they look,” adding that “you shouldn’t really worry about someone else’s weight unless they bring it up to you.”

When asking if fatshaming was ever okay, sophomore Ian Talley insisted against it. “No- because it’s stupid,” he replied. “Why go up against a person that doesn’t hurt people? They’re not bothering you. They’re not hurting you.” Sarah Flores and Elizabeth Bangura, also sophomores, said they shared similar views. Flores asserted that one’s weight is only the business of “your parents or your doctor,” but never a stranger. “You don’t want to offend anyone,” she added. Bangura chimed in, asserting that “It’s not their business.”

Arbour ended her video by stating that she loves everyone regardless but hopes that her message will explode like a “bomb of truth” that “makes you want to be healthier so that we can enjoy you as human beings longer on this planet.” However, the correlation between weight and health is exaggerated to a great extent. The myth that one can not be fat and healthy at the same time is simply untrue and is only pushed by the what individuals have been led to believe by the media and pop culture. Junior Rokhaya Niang put it perfectly when addressing that “people whose health are actually being affected by their weight are aware of it and that’s the only situation where [others] should actually be concerned… and even then, you can’t tell if someone’s unhealthy based on their weight alone.”