A portmanteau of the words "obesity" and "beauty" coined by comedian Jon Stewart in his
2004, "
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to
Democracy Inaction". It predicts the rise of the "Fat Acceptance" and "Health at Every Size" and the rise of the related term, "BBW" (Big Beautiful
Woman) by over a decade:
"Around 2015, Americans will realize it would be much easier to change their standard of beauty than to lose weight. From that point on, we will embrace our indulgent lifestyles. Gyms will close, fad binge books will rule the best-seller lists, and singles ads will end with the phrase "Yes fatties."
It shows a picture of a clearly morbidly
obese woman with the caption, "In the future, you will want to 'tap' this."
While meant to be satirical, the 2015 date in particular is considered especially prescient as that is the year the first morbidly
obese-sized model, Tess Holiday (
Tess Munster) was signed on as a model by a major professional agency.
By
2021, Tess Holiday was first featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine, came out as an "anorexic", and Victoria's Secret officially retired the traditional "angels" model of thin beauty and announced their new "body positive" role models for their fashion shows moving forward.
The term also coincides with the rejection in Fat Acceptance circles of the scientific BMI (Body Mass Index) as racist and
white-centric.
The term, "obeausity", never caught on in favor of terms like "infinifat" or "Tessorexia".
Tessie: With the increase of waistlines and the prevalence of
obesity in the
United States and globally, obeausity and body positivity are the new beauty standard.
Sasha: No, that's just an old-school name for Tessorexia.
