I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about fat shaming, and whether or not it is acceptable in any form. He argued that to make fun of or shame someone for their size is not a good thing to do, no matter how fat they are.

I respectfully disagree.

Does anyone remember Nicole Arbor? She had her fifteen seconds of fame when she released a YouTube video titled "Dear Fat People." Arbor was ripped to shreds by people who were outraged that she would make fun of fat people the way that she did, and implied that they were not perfect the way they are. That wasn't how I saw it. In fact, I agreed with pretty much everything she said, and after rewatching that video she posted some three years ago, I still do.

In the video, Arbor implies that being really fat isn't a handicap in and of itself, and goes on to say that instead of parking in the front, fat people should be forced to park far away so that they can at least walk a little more.

Now, before I go any further, I would like to point something out to all of the keyboard warriors out there ready to go to battle - she's joking. People are allowed to acknowledge that things are awful and terrible and still have a sense of humor about them. Just because I make a joke about fat people, or someone of another race, or a gay person does not make me a fat-shamer, or a racist, or a homophobe. All it means is that you can't tell the difference between reality and jokes, and you can't accept life as it is.

Okay, now that my rant on that topic is over, I'd like to use this video as a way to talk about body positivity in general, because as crass and insensitive as it is, it makes a pretty damn good point.

The whole idea of body positivity is that your body is perfect no matter what size you are, even if you have to be lifted out of bed by a crane every morning.

While there have been good things to come out of this movement (plus-sized models and greater acceptance and less discrimination against more curvy people), there is a downside to it all.

For starters, I'm only talking about this in relation to obese people - there are people out there who are fat because of a medical condition or some other way through no fault of their own, and I won't make fun of them for something they can't control. However, obesity is a real problem in this country.

What we should be doing is helping obese people lose weight, but instead, whenever someone tells an obese person that they might want to go to the gym, they're automatically an awful person because he didn't think that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.

I can also get behind treating obesity as a disability, as long as everyone realizes that they did it to themselves. I get that some people are just more heavy set, but there's no way to get to 500 pounds just because you have a glandular problem, and eating too many Big Macs shouldn't entitle you to the same handicap sticker as someone who was born with a physical defect.

In the end, I guess, when an obese person is told that they're fine just the way they are, you're being nice, but you're not helping them.

You're enabling them.

Besides, if making fun of a fat person motivates them to actually exercise, lose a few pounds and possibly save their life, then that is a price that I'm more than willing to pay.