Weight as Dating Bargaining Chip

Online debates about obesity often function less as health interventions and more as status‑signalling and mate‑market bargaining: shaming or lecturing an individual’s weight rarely triggers sustained change because it ignores the social incentives and identity work that underlie body choices. — If weight is treated primarily as a social/sexual signal, public‑health campaigns, platform moderation, and gender‑policy debates must rethink tactics from moralizing admonitions to structural, incentive‑aware approaches.