Instead of those comments, I will quote Sera Lilly's post, which she wrote following Wallace's TV appearance.
"Having been in the fashion industry for as long as I have I am stoked to see more brands finally recognising that women are diverse and we all have different body shapes," the fashion designer wrote on social media.
"It's taken years to get to this stage we are at now! We still have a long way to go but it's a million times better than where it used it be," she added.
"Do you know how amazing I feel to see a body like mine in fashion ads and on websites? I don't think she will ever understand the toll the fashion industry has had on mine and so many others' mental health over the years! The pressure to conform to this unrealistic expectation of beauty. It's a joke."
The designer was not the only one to slam Wallace's comments, with champion shot putter Dame Valerie Adams saying, "So size 12 is normal but size 18 is not [punch emoji]. Uppercut yourself because what you're saying is disgusting."
Wallace replied Saturday saying she was asked her opinion about the country's "appalling stats on obesity and I gave it". She said she could have lied and said they were just something we have to live with but she chose to do the latter. She had received many "wonderful and inspiring" messages from people who decided to begin a weight-loss journey in order to live longer.
Krystine Nation, from the popular Facebook page "Real Life Wife", published an open letter to Wallace where she said she hoped no vulnerable young ladies watched her comments on TV.
"If you are going to stigmatise 'fat' women in fashion and base their health on their size I think you better discuss the eating disorders, size pressures and ill health issues surrounding 'skinny' models too.
Dear Louise Wallace
If you are going to stigmatize "fat" women in fashion and base their health on their size I think...
Posted by Real life wife- Krystine Nation on Wednesday, June 8, 2022
"There are ways to approach health issues and that ain't it.
"Maybe we need to deal to mental health, maybe we need to sort our social issues, maybe people are suffering because the cost of living is so high and people cannot afford good food, maybe because of these costs people are having to work longer hours and cannot exercise ... That interview was an embarrassment."
Another comment worth highlighting came from activist Shaneel Lal, who wrote: "Being fat is not synonymous to being unhealthy. If anything, the modelling industry has the opposite effect on people. It starved models - now that's unhealthy.
"We've spent years hating fat people and it hasn't fixed anything. Maybe it's time we realise fat people aren't the problem, but instead our western beauty ideals."
Instead of highlighting Wallace's comments, what is important to reinforce is that a person's weight and size are not reliable measures of health. You simply cannot tell anything about a person's health by the size on their clothing labels.
What's also important to note is that there are socio-economic aspects and deeply problematic systemic issues relating to the food we consume in the western world today. While there are individual solutions to individual issues, it is not okay to put the blame on individuals for problems caused by the capitalist structure we currently live in. You cannot create a society that conditions people to live a certain way, then blame them for the way they live.
And it's also important to know that there is a whole lot of privilege embedded in the idea that anyone could just "grow their own food", as Wallace suggested at one point.
Wallace is not a doctor nor a researcher and has absolutely no qualifications to talk about these issues. She also does not get to define what "normal" means.
Being overweight is not a personal or a moral failure. Suggesting that we put gaffer tape on people's mouths to stop them eating, on the other hand ...
