Lets call Meme Roth what she really is...

No, not a crazy person. Far from it. Not an anorexic, though I would suggest her commandments about eating represent the casual disorder that our society expects of women. No, the truth about Roth is far simplier and is indeed the truth about most self-annoited crusaders against fat people.

She's a craven opportunist and self-promoter. She is a manipulator of the media. No, seriously. That was her profession. She was a publicist. This is what she's trained to do. She's doing what virtually all anti-fat talking heads do. None are ever qualified in any functional way. They know that the media doesn't really care about that. They just want the talking head to say the extreme nonsense. Oh, I don't doubt that Roth hates fat people. The best illusions are grounded in the truth. But this persona is a creation for the benefit of marketing herself. She's building a profile to then monitize in book deals, speaking engagements, etc. She's no lunatic. She knows quite precisely what she's doing and is getting away with it very neatly.

She's helped by the real forces behind fat stigmatization. What she accomplishes is an old political trick. Stake out an extreme position so you can appear to settle for what you wanted all along. Roth becomes an effective tool for oppressing fat people precisely by her outrageousness. Its pushing the debate into such a place that ordinary fat stigmatization seems moderate in the face her viciousness, in turn making the extremely mild requests of that fat activists seem more extreme. See, we tend to compromise for ourselves. We tone down the message in the hopes of reaching more people. But fat stigmatization just doubles down with people like Meme Roth saying even more extreme things. While we move to the center, they move further out so the extreme position they've had all along now seems like the center. Roth and the talking heads like her work to make ordinary fat hatred seem like a sensible proposition. They work to comfort and soothe people who believe in fat stigmatization but don't like thinking about the consequences of it. They can always soothe their sense of morality by reminding themselves that they aren't like Roth and her ilk. They don't respect fat people, but its not like they point at them and heckle. They just quietly judge or self-righteously lecture. Why, its the moderate thing to do. Some even delude themselves into thinking because they oppose people like Roth, that they are fat accepting. Just not like the nutcase fat activists. They all have eating disorders.

Roth, and virtually all of the talking heads on this matter, are ultimately just stalking horses of a kind. Setting out to advance fat stigmatization, but doing so in a fashion which allow the true powers-that-be ample cover. Because the difference is ultimately in demeanor more than purpose, it essentially allows fat stigmatiation to consolidate influence over one extreme and the center of the argument. The next step is getting a fat-stigmatizing brand of "moderate fat acceptance" to represent the other extreme and you'll get just what they want. An argument where everyone agrees that its not okay to be a fat person and they just quibble on how to enforce the one acceptable belief and true change is shunted even further to the outskirts. Don't let the outlandishness of Roth, fool you. Its not doing more harm than good to her position. Its doing exactly what its supposed to.