I am not a fan of Bill Maher and don't like his personality. But he did make a good point when he was calling for more "fat shaming."
Maher and I are not aligned politically and I don't think he is funny. He wants to be provocative more than he wants to fix things, maybe that stems from his need for attention and maybe its his job. But in his own vitriolic way he does have a point....
“In August, 53 Americans died from mass shootings,” the host of Real Time with Bill Maher told his live studio audience in Los Angeles. “Terrible right? Do you know how many died from obesity? Forty thousand. Fat shaming doesn’t need to end it needs to make a comeback. Some amount of shame is good. We shamed people out of smoking and into wearing seat belts. We shamed them out of littering and most of them out of racism. Shame is the first step in reform.”
Maher is right that obesity it a huge problem. It is so bad for the help if individuals that we are starting to lose ground against heart disease because of it. Whether you believe in a government solution for healhtcare or private solutions, excess costs from obesity are still a major hurdle. It hurts our country's productivity and economy. Even the US military says it threatens the defense of our country.
Nobody wants to see people be mean or bully people, especially not that it is so easy to do so online. But if we normalize obesity or even pretend that it doesn't matter then we are going to have more trouble addressing it.
The question is, can we hold people accountable for making changes they need to fix their own problems without being jerks about it? I think we can and we need to.