Mike, Molly, and Maura Kelly

I was first introduced to this article by Maura Kelly, a blogger for Marie Claire Magazine, while scrolling through my Twitter news feed. I took a look, thought it was odd, then continued on with my day. The next morning I heard about it again on the Today Show. About 30 minutes later it was being discussed on the radio station I was listening to in my car. This afternoon, it was featured on E! News. Obviously this article was a hot topic this week, so I decided to take a closer look.

Here are a few of the highlights (aka lowlights):

1. A lack of knowledge on the issue
-Kelly begins her post by stating that she "can be kinda clueless" (she is quite self-aware) in addition to stating "I'm not much of a TV person" and "I had no idea what she (her editor who mentioned the show) was talking about". Well, I guess I could give her credit for warning her readers that she is completely unaware of her topic.

2. Judging health based on appearance
-After stating that "the country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy" she goes on to say "No one as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy." This, my friends, is know as a contradiction. Yes, Maura you are right, the country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy but judging whether or not someone is healthy based on physical appearance kind of sounds like it adds to this "obsession with physical perfection" that you were talking about a couple lines earlier.

3. Giving advice after heartless ranting
-Ok seriously, after you spent 4 paragraphs talking about how disgusting it is to see a larger person walk across the room (not to mention comparing them to a drunk person..what?!) you decide to go all Jillian Michaels on them and give some weight loss tips. Pointless. Your attempt to remedy the situation was lost on me (and I love health and fitness tips).

Perhaps the best part was Kelly's final line. She ends her story with "I don't know...". Perfect way to state the obvious.

After this post turned into a huge controversy Kelly apologized, stating that most her comments stemmed from her own battle with anorexia.

Personally, I think health is important and that our country isn't the picture of perfect health. The amount of processed foods and fast food that is available to us is obnoxious but what is even worse is the fact that most of us are unaware of how truly harmful these foods are to our bodies. Couple that with a lack of physical activity, and a lack of knowledge on what exactly will fulfill our personal health needs and we have a real problem on our hands. But an even bigger problem is Kelly's ignorant and insensitive blog post. Despite what we may personally think about others based on their size, being quick to judge, especially based solely on physical appearance, is no way to remedy this.