The body positivity and fat acceptance movements are dangerous and irresponsible over corrections to the problem of bullying and harassment. Most decent human beings are in agreement when it comes to condemning abuse targeted at people because of their weight, but encouraging people, particularly children, to embrace their obesity is even more harmful than what it seeks to correct.

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For several years, there has been a growing call for media of all types to include and feature more obese people, particularly women. I don’t care overly much when this programming targets adults, since grown-ass men and women should be expected to be responsible for their own actions and not pass the blame to the latest fragrance commercial. I have a massive problem, however, when these advocates push for more fat main characters and heroines in children’s programming. As with many “diversity” campaigns, fat acceptance advocates like to focus their ire on Disney princesses.

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For example, Sofie Hagen, a Danish comedian working in Britain, tweeted on Sept. 1: “I cannot stress how much we need a fat Disney princess. We need it now. Shut up. We fucking do.” She followed this up with several days of spamming messages that consisted entirely of “We need a fat Disney princess.”

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I cannot adequately express how revolting this is to me. Sofie clearly believes that society needs to give overweight young people (in this case, girls) role models that look as unhealthy as they do. Leaving aside the bigger issue, that parents should be a child’s primary role models, there are several glaring problems with this view.

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First, role models should possess qualities worth aspiring to. The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who are overweight have only their own lack of self-control to blame. A lack of self-discipline is not an admirable trait. It would be a great thing if a heroine started her adventure significantly overweight and part of her story arc involved getting fit in a safe and responsible way, but that sort of thing would run exactly opposite to the idiotic worldview of Hagen and her fellow enablers. They’d rather project their own insecurities onto young children as a way of excusing their own personal failings and move the goalposts to make their failures acceptable than go through the effort to succeed.

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Also, I reject her idea that people need to see their own physical appearance represented in order admire heroic qualities and characters. This nonsensical idea is usually the basis of other social pressure groups, particularly those pushing racial diversity in films. I’ve always rejected the racist idea that a black kid can only look up to a black hero, and I similarly reject the idea that a fat girl can only identify with a fat heroine.

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Finally, both my fiancée and I have struggled with weight our entire lives. We’re currently working our butts off to get fit and healthy so we can be good role models for our future children. Keeping those children healthy and fit will be our responsibility, but that’s not an excuse for people like Sofie Hagen to make things more difficult for us.