If a television show is based around plus-size women accepting, if not loving their bodies, does it send the wrong message to overweight women? If you ask different people, the answer is yes. A television show like TLC’s new series “Big Hot” does nothing for full-figured women but make them think it’s okay to teeter over a size 20, when they should be working to lose some of the weight. Why? Because society says it’s not a good look to be a proud big girl.

While watching the entertainment show “The Insider” last night, I got a preview of the new reality series “Big Hot.” It seemed very cute, like the plus-size version of “Sex and the City,” still set in New York City, but with women of all shades living it up as big girls in the big city. The show looks to showcase their experiences with dating, modeling, and dealing with the discrimination of people who aren’t so accepting. It looked both entertaining and endearing–a win win. But not more than a minute after the preview played on “The Insider,” co-host Kevin Frazier made the statement that while he could appreciate the idea of the show, he was wondering if it was sending a bad message: telling women who are actually at an unhealthy weight to learn to enjoy their weight and rock it, rather than take care of it for health’s sake. While I understood what he was trying to say, it also came out sounding sort of…well, jackass-ish. Why? His tone showed that he didn’t seem pleased or amused by the show at all (Debbie Downer, much?) and because, well, aren’t there already like 80,000 shows centered around overweight people being told to lose weight?