The universal disgust towards overweight people is not a separate issue from the unhealthy nature of excess weight.  It is a result of it. Everyone finds fat people disgusting.  Everyone here does, everyone back on reddit does, even hunks of lard on tumblr find fat people disgusting.  Camera tricks and slimming shapeware exist for a reason.  Fat people want to date slim people just as much as slim people do, and fail at this merely due to the sexual economics of being undesirable.  Every year billions of dollars and countless talk show hours are spent hawking the latest diet scam or gluttony obfuscation tactic.  There is universal agreement that fatness is unattractive.  In a way, it is comforting to have something that everyone agrees on. This isn't an arbitrary preference, or conscious decision that our society made.  It is a natural, logical tenet of natural selection that sexual attraction is keyed into health and physical well-being.  I never sat down and made a pact with myself that I would only date skinny women.  I merely am not attracted to overweight people, and furthermore, neither is anyone else.  There are, of course, other qualifications for a potential mate.  Intelligence, personality, financial success, these things are undeniably critical to finding someone attractive.  For some people, these other qualifications might outweigh(hehe)  physical health.  It doesn't for me, but I can understand their choice.  If one is overweight oneself, and therefore disgusting, it is of course much more difficult to find a physically healthy partner.  It is crucial to notice here that even these people who settle still find fatness disgusting.  They merely were forced to settle due to some shortcoming of their own.  If the fattie didn't lack the will to accept thermodynamics, they would of been able to find a superior mate. Fatlogic often uses the example of ancient eras in particular areas where being fat was considered attractive.  As a result, they claim that preference against overweight people is an arbitrary choice of society.  Viewed logically, these examples actually serve to prove my point.  In these eras, being overweight had practical advantages.  When food supply is extremely inconsistent, and life spans are very short due to environmental danger, it inevitably follows that fatness would be an attractive quality.  We don't live in the archaic wilderness anymore, and using this history to defend modern day fatness is a thinly(haha!) veiled excuse. EDIT:  "journalistsarelazy" raised the excellent point of "bbw fetishists, chasers, and feeders." Certainly, there are outliers in any population.  I would argue, however, that the majority of people who claim to be into fat people are doing so as a method of sexual economy.  If they find other traits, such as intelligence or financial success to be extremely important, they can find a very intelligent, rich partner by settling for a fat person.  Since being fat is disgusting, the demand for this person is low enough that they are attainable.  They then delude themselves into thinking that they really are into fat people to temper the disgust they feel.