TW: Social abuse, self-harm, suicide, etc. (alot of possible triggers. A mod should probably complete the list for me).

So, I’m an avid gamer, and I was watching one of my favorite Youtube gaming channels, Boogie2988. This guy usually makes videos with a persona he calls Francis, who is a stereotypically nerdy gamer with a lisp and a tendency to over-react. This video, though (I’ll link it at the bottom), carries what he believes is an important message, so he is his normal self in it. He talks about what it was like to be alone for most of his life, how it affected him emotionally and physically, especially how his weight was a major factor in people ostracizing him. He also talks about how he got through it due to someone who was, at the time, pretty much his only friend. That’s all important stuff, and I think everyone here should watch it, but I’m here to talk about something he says near the start of the video:

He quotes a study that says that loneliness is TWICE as deadly as obesity (his words) is. He says that lonely people get sick more often, are more prone to depression and suicide, and several other things.

That hit me. Because when he said that, I suddenly had a thought: We all know that obesity isn’t nearly as lethal (if at all) as the media and big Pharm and the weight loss industry would like us to believe. But what if the lethality that IS there (if indeed it IS there) is due to the social stigma placed on fat? Fat people are ostracized, cast out, made pariahs by our society. We are made lonely.

I could release my inner conspiracy theorist and rave about how it must be a plan by ‘the man’, whomever that may be to make more money by making fat people lonely and then going, “See? It does kill you!” But that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.

I may have found an explanation for why so many swear up and down that fat kills.

Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-usOHfSQuA