On Wednesday, model and activist Tess Holliday posted a video to TikTok in which she claimed she’d been denied life insurance because of her weight. With the caption “AAA you did me dirty man,” Holliday said in the video she was “sorry” for ever believing a “40-year-old, nonsmoking, nondrinking, non–health issue-having human” might be able to secure coverage without any issues. “Am I five-foot-three, and do I weigh over 300 pounds? Apparently that makes me ineligible for life insurance,” she said, laughing. “Do I work out every single day and have no preexisting conditions or take any kind of medication? Yeah, I do.”
Holliday has been advocating for people in bigger bodies since at least 2013, when she launched the #effyourbeautystandards movement on Instagram. Over a decade later, much of that cultural progress has come undone. But Holliday understands that “the medical-industrial complex is fatphobic.” “Inherently the system is broken,” she said, adding sarcastically, “I understand, and that’s my bad, and honestly, it won’t happen again. Lesson learned.”
Anecdotal accounts on Reddit suggest it’s not uncommon for life-insurance companies to reject clients based on weight — a symptom of the medical industry’s tendency to see larger bodies as unhealthy. In a 2024 study, 80 percent of patients living with type III obesity reported experiences of weight stigma in health-care settings, which worsened for younger patients and those with chronic illnesses.
Holliday announced earlier this month that she’s relaunching the Eff Your Beauty Standards campaign “because diversity, bodily autonomy, and human rights are under attack.” She added, “The work is far from over, and the people who found safety here deserve that space again.”⠀
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