Grammy award-winning artist Lizzo recently declared in an Instagram post that her body is the new standard of beauty.
Lizzo posted a video to her Instagram account Sunday night after getting out of the shower. She captioned the post, “I’m sorry that my perfect face & rockin [sic] body offends you… I can’t help that I’m God’s favorite.”
“I just finished showering and doing my little routine and you know what I realized? I am fucking gorgeous. I am the beauty standard,” she said.
“Catch up bitch,” she added before her phone fell on the counter and the clip cuts off.
While Lizzo is considered tall for a woman at 5’10”, her weight is estimated somewhere between 200 – 300 lbs. This puts her in the obese to morbidly obese range.
Despite the known drawbacks of carrying this much extra body fat, this isn’t the first time Lizzo has made claims about being the “beauty standard”.
She has been one of the most outspoken stars in the entertainment industry claiming that being overweight is not only healthy, but normal.
The recent push for “body positivity” has given rise to popular obese stars. Many of these individuals – such as model Tess Holliday – have made claims that morbid obesity is not only acceptable, but a body type appealing to a large subset of the population.
Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, told People magazine in March of last year that she doesn’t understand why the word “fat” has to have a negative connotation. She said she would like to help see the destigmatization of people who have higher body fat percentages.
“Okay, we all know I’m fat,” she said. “I know I’m fat. It doesn’t bother me. I like being fat, and I’m beautiful and I’m healthy. So can we move on?”
In another People interview, Lizzo said she has a “hot body” that she is embracing more and more every day. She said that she doesn’t have to be a person’s ideal body type and compared her situation to that of Kim Kardashian.
“Kim Kardashian might not be someone’s ideal, but she’s a body icon and has created a modern-day beauty standard. And what I’m doing is stepping into my confidence and my power to create my own beauty standard.”
It appears Lizzo has given many similar interviews over the year. She told Glamour magazine in 2019 that she never puts any thought into her body.
“I don’t think about my body ever… Imagine just not thinking about your body. You’re not hating it. You’re not loving it. You’re just a floating head. I’m a floating head wandering through the world.”
The singer has her own clothing line called Yitty that offers different designs and pieces to fit plus sizes up to 6XL. To put that in perspective, that’s larger than the width of this stand-alone kitchen pantry from Lowe’s, which is only 62.9 inches wide.
Studies have shown that morbid obesity can lead to a plethora of health issues. These include, but are not limited to, stroke joint problems, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea and certain types of cancer.
The CDC and NIH both agree that the more overweight a person is, the more health problems they can expect to develop.
On the CDC’s website, they define being overweight or obese as someone having a “Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25; obesity, a subset of overweight, is defined as a BMI greater than or equal to 30.”
Certain lifestyle choices, such as a sedentary lifestyle and a person’s environment, can affect health outcomes. These outcomes vary from race to race.
