Fitness expert and health advocate Jillian Michaels warned Tuesday on Newsmax that shifting language driven by "woke" culture is not only misleading but potentially harmful, particularly when it comes to public health.
Speaking on Newsmax's "Finnerty," Michaels, host of the "Keeping It Real" podcast, pointed to a recent 20-minute debate she had with body positivity activists, where one participant objected to the term "obese" and instead preferred "fat-bodied."
"Overweight and obese is literally just having too much body fat. It has nothing to do with the quality of the person," Michaels said during the exchange, emphasizing the term's clinical meaning.
Michaels told host Rob Finnerty that the broader trend of replacing traditional or clinical language reflects something more concerning.
"I don't really know. I think it's a bit more nefarious than that," she said. "I think that when you change the language, you change the way people think, how they feel, and subsequently how they behave."
She compared the shift to what she described as "neuro-linguistic programming," adding, "It's pretty dangerous to be honest."
The debate over terminology comes as obesity rates remain a major public health issue in the United States. Finnerty cited a recent study finding nearly 70% of U.S. adults are medically classified as obese.
Michaels argued that abandoning clinical language like "obese" risks minimizing serious health concerns.
"When you take away the clinical term, right, it's no longer life threatening. It's no longer something we have to worry about," she said. "It becomes feelings over facts, which is destroying the fabric of our society and will cost millions of people their lives if we don't allow doctors to use clinical terms like obese. It's madness."
During the debate, Michaels also pushed back on claims that excess body fat is not inherently unhealthy.
"There are dozens of MRT trials that show having excess body fat, dozens, is causal, not correlated," she said, later telling the body-positivity advocate that obesity "lends itself to all-cause mortality across the board."
Michaels said she did not successfully persuade her debate opponent but hopes the conversation encourages more people to examine the evidence.
"I think the silent majority has been intimidated into silence due to fear of cancellation," she said. "The more people like you and me, we speak out, we call this out, we speak for that silent majority, the better it's going to be in the long run."
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