I’ll start off by saying that fashion magazines are not something I’ve been interested in. But even I recognized something big was happening in the fashion world with the release of Cosmo UK’s October cover a few weeks ago. Rarely does a single magazine cover draw criticism and praise with such volume and intensity, but it turns out the image of a 280-pound woman blowing a kiss on the front cover of one of the biggest magazines in the industry sets a lot of people off.

The woman was Tess Holliday, an American plus-size model. The caption next to her reads “Tess Holliday wants the haters to kiss her ass.” It goes without saying that the cover inspired immediate backlash, most prominently British journalist Piers Morgan’s Instagram post describing how such a cover “is just as dangerous and misguided as celebrating size zero models.”

Well Piers, most of the time I hate you. And while this is no exception, I believe there is a small, ill-considered but still relevant grain of truth in what you have to say about the cover. Putting Holliday front and center isn’t “dangerous” or “misguided” because there is so much more to Holliday than her size. Putting obesity in the spotlight, however, is. 

Holliday may be beautiful and glamorous, but the facts of obesity are not. Obesity is the fifth leading cause of death globally, it affects 1.4 billion people and it is completely preventable. We should be encouraging healthy eating and exercise habits to prevent obesity as enthusiastically as we do to prevent eating disorders. Sometimes it feels like there’s a taboo around talking about the issue realistically.

I think that’s because there is a flaw in our conversation about women, weight and beauty, a flaw that tells us a woman cannot be both unhealthily overweight and beautiful. To be clear, this is not an article arguing that being fat makes someone ugly; beauty is a much deeper and more extensive characteristic than weight and the true measure of a person’s beauty is the content of their character.

However, I also think that being healthy is a beautiful thing and we should promote that idea rather than the one that it’s okay or normal to be very overweight. Obesity is a top killer of Americans and we need to take that threat seriously.

Let me clarify: I was very excited to see Holliday on the cover of Cosmo. That cover was a celebration of her beauty, both inner and outer, as well as her accomplishments and personal journey. Let’s learn to celebrate those aspects of a woman —her intellect, her achievements, her inner beauty— rather than her weight (whether it be too low or too high) and physical appearance.

There’s a difference between celebrating a woman being confident and comfortable in her body, and celebrating her size. We as a society need to recognize that difference and embrace the first approach. Holliday’s Cosmo cover is a triumph, not because she is overweight, but because of the challenges she has overcome and the accomplishments she’s made in spite of it. 

If Piers Morgan had realized this, he might not have had an issue with the cover. But he did not realize it because the value and beauty of a woman has traditionally been correlated to her weight. Let’s change the conversation around weight, change our concept of beauty and see what strides we can make for the better – both in terms of body positivity AND health.