“Fatphobia” is not a word.

Cacomorphobia (KAY-ko-more-FOE-be-uh): Fear of fat people.

Pocrescophobia (poe-CRESS-ko-FOE-be-uh) or Obesophobia (oh-BE-so-FOE-be-uh): Fear of gaining weight or becoming fat.

Fatphobia (fat-FOE-be-uh): “dUUuUuUH! mE tOO stOOpiD aNd LAzy To LOOk uP wOrDZ, sO mE inVeNT OwN wOrDZ!”

And before some idiot chimes in with the “correction” that “phobia” includes “discrimination against” and “hatred directed toward,” not just fear, let me say here that I realize this. I’m simply assuming that most people reading this have the common sense that God gave a radish. After all, a “homophobe” is not typically someone who runs away screaming every time he sees a gay couple walking down the street (although that would certainly be homophobic). Usually it’s because they have a visceral and overwhelmingly negative reaction when it comes to gay people or homosexuality.

Though I should point out that -phobic comes from the Greek word phobos, which means fear.

So, if you feel the need to point out that the suffix -phobia refers to more than just fear, by all means, do so. I’ll come out to the vegetable patch once a day to water you.

I am, at this moment, in recovery from COVID. Presumably, it’s the Omicron variant, but testing for the specific variant is only done in one location in the entire country, and it’s not in my state. From New Year’s Day last year, to New Year’s Day this year, I was on a diet and exercise regimen, and I lost forty pounds. Still have a bit of a ways to go, but it’s a decent start.

The reason I mention this is that during my bout with COVID, there were times when the very act of drawing a breath was difficult. The illness brought on an overwhelming sense of weakness (I was unable to take even twenty steps when I got out of bed). And the excess weight I still carry made this even more difficult. I felt I was struggling against my own body’s weight just to breathe. For several days, I was taking at least a dozen hot baths a day. Not only did the heat from the water help with the chills brought on by my illness, but the water actually helped support my weight, making breathing much easier.

I genuinely find myself wondering, if I had gotten sick a year earlier, when I was forty pounds heavier, would I even be here now? Many are probably thinking, “Omicron is a mild variant. Of course you would have survived.”

I am really not certain of this.

With this in mind, I feel it vitally important to get this message out: the proponents of the soi-disant “fat acceptance movement” promote the idea that the only reason fat people experience bad outcomes is because of the “fatphobia” of the medical industry and its practitioners. The advocates of fat acceptance are lying to themselves. Which is arguably the very worst person to lie to.

Fat people experience bad outcomes because obesity is a deadly medical condition. I am not suggesting that any medical practitioner should be less than kind and compassionate to anyone struggling with obesity. I do acknowledge and have heard the horror stories about callous doctors who were dismissive of their patient’s medical issues and simply responded “Lose weight” to an obese patient without so much as a thorough examination (which all patients are entitled to). But to treat this reprehensible treatment as the cause of the bad outcomes that the obese experience is simply living in denial.

Obesity is deadly.

Period.

Taking “fat acceptance” on board will only serve to make an obese person the most self-accepting person in the graveyard.

In watching some of the fat acceptance advocates promoting their agenda on that intellectual wasteland known as TikTok, there was once a very famous video by a TikToker named lexinimmo. In one of her drippingly condescending and unctuous “Adult Pre-K” lessons, she basically explains that excluding fat people from your dating pool is “problematic.”

To which I have a very simple question: Why? Why is it “problematic”?

I ask because my dating preferences, which exclude fat people, aren’t a problem for me in the least. I find plenty of prospective dates that are within my preferences. I’m not the least bit bothered by my preferences. So for whom are my preferences a problem?

I suspect that the answer is for lexinimmo herself. Yes, I would exclude someone like lexinimmo from my dating pool. And yes, one of the reasons would definitely be her size. (The other being her overwhelming obnoxiousness. She could be my physical ideal, but her personality kills off any chance of me even considering going out with her.) It is apparent that lexinimmo is frustrated over the fact that her size causes most people to exclude her from their pool of prospective dates.

But that is, quite literally, her problem. No one is obligated to try and force themselves to be attracted to fat people so lexinimmo can get a date.

If you want to know what I find problematic, it’s someone dictating to me who I am allowed to decline. That would seem to be a very dangerous position to take. The reason is encapsulated in this very simple mantra which I advise everyone to learn and commit to memory:

My consent is not up for debate.

That’s it. That’s the entire mantra. Again:

My consent is not up for debate.

Learn it, absorb it, let it become your guiding principle, if you feel the need.

I am allowed to refuse anyone for any reason and no one is owed an explanation for my refusal. Never allow yourself to be put on the defensive or feel obligated to defend or justify your preferences. No means no. You simply don’t have to.

And really, how narcissistic do you have to be to think that if no one wants to date you, then it’s the world that has a problem that must be addressed?

No. If lexinimmo finds that no one is asking her out on dates, then lexinimmo has the problem. And it is her obligation to fix this problem. (Or not, and stay undateable.) Not the world’s task to learn to start dating insufferable, entitled fat people.