One of the biggest social movements in today's western society is body positivity. This movement advocates loving your body no matter what shape, size, or color it is — loving yourself and your body unconditionally because that's who you are and you cannot change it.

The movement itself is great. Spreading love between women is something so often overlooked and this movement helps women who struggle with body image overcome their doubts and lack of body confidence.

But there is one problem. Being confident in your body is great, but the body positivity movement has seemingly forgotten one thing.

Just because you feel great in your body does not mean that you have a healthy body.

While mental health and physical health can influence each other, they can also be completely different. Mental health has to do with attitude and behavioral. Physical health has to do with where your body is measured by the body mass index (BMI) and how in shape you are. If a person's mental health is bad, it can influence their physical health, and vice versa.

However, sometimes people can be completely confident in their bodies and not recognize that they might have a serious physical health issue.

There is nothing wrong with being "bigger boned," "curvy," or "thick." Some people are naturally born with wider hips or body frames. Their height enables them to be a little stockier or leaner.

But there's a problem when people become clinically obese and are not adequately informed of the health risks that being obese can entail.

I know this is the point where a lot of people would click off, but bear with me.

I understand that some people have health issues that render them unable to lose weight, but if someone is overweight or the socially acceptable term "plus-sized" due to their lack of drive to work out, or take care of themselves and eat healthily, that's where we have a problem.

We have to stop normalizing obesity.

Other countries don't have as much of a problem as America does with obesity. Some have worse problems than us, yes, but according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in October of 2017, the American Obesity rate hit an all-time high. Forty percent of American Adults and 20% of adolescents were obese.

It's an epidemic, yet we continue to normalize it in our culture and demonize anyone who speaks out about it. I'm very much for body positivity, but people should really take a look at where body positivity should begin. If one suffers from being overweight or obese, should they really be that positive in their body? They can positive with their goals in where they want to get with their body, but they shouldn't pride themselves in the fact that they fall into the category of clinically obese.

Yes, life gets in the way and not everyone can take time out of their day to work out, but if they cannot work out then at least make the effort to pick the salad over the fries. It is all about the choices you make for yourself. And if you are doing all you can to lose weight, or get yourself to your next goal, and you just cannot get there for some reason: at least you are trying and that is something you should pride yourself in.

Many social media outlets promote body positivity through overweight women. What message is this sending to teenagers? The initial thought would be, it's OK to be overweight and wear things that you like, and feel good in. But, when it comes down to it, it teaches young girls that they shouldn't worry about their bodies and what they look like in terms weight.

Teaching young girls that it's OK to be overweight can be detrimental to their physical health eventually. For most people, their body and their image of themselves lies entirely in their hands. We must empower girls to strive to be healthy, not comfortable with what they've got. If your body is healthy, you'll undoubtedly be happy and confident in yourself.

Take the smaller portions, take the salad, eat healthily, and workout (without moving into the territory of an eating disorder — all of this should be done in moderation and at a healthy pace). Only then will you really feel the most positive about your body. You might not get abs or super toned muscles, but your physical health will be in check and you can be at lower risks for heart disease and other weight-related diseases and disorders.

We must stop normalizing obesity, and that starts with the recognition that it is a problem.