Well, lets start with the fact that your personal reflection is bunk, and I'm not an american as well, but culturally aware enough to know that the european ste

Well, lets start with the fact that your personal reflection is bunk, and I'm not an american as well, but culturally aware enough to know that the european stereotype of Americans being really politically correct is actually present in an american "Europeans are politically correct" version. Also, "horizontally-challenged" is not something that really happens. Actual political correctness is either saying "overweight" when it's relevant, or keeping it to your own damn self when it's not. Now, to the personal reflection — people might rationally know that it's no-one's business how much they weight, but still be aware of the societal perception of their looks. They might be still healthy people, and they would be happy with their looks, but the reaction of society to their looks makes them feel bad anyway, and one of such reactions is using expressions such as "fat". As for "shaming" == "encouraging," it's just not true, to avoid harsher statements. In fact shaming is extremely discouraging to people, is mostly done without awareness if the person being shamed can or wants to actually change the state that caused shaming, and is just done to boost egos of people doing the shaming. It's only use is in discouraging extremely unwanted behaviors – such as, for example, shaming people whose looks don't conform to your particular standards of beauty. Oh, and "positive change" might be actually a load of bunk as well. And, finally, as to the "keeping in ignorance" remark, it's an extremely ignorant remark. For one, the "if irrelevant" is important here. My doctor can still tell me that the recently acquired extra load on my joints is probably contributing to my knee issues, interestingly enough without using the expression "fat slob", and people can talk about oppression of people of color in general or blacks, or immigrants in general or Mexicans in specific, depending on how specific the issues in question are. The words become "incorrect" when either used for no reason (why did you need to mention the race of a person doing that annoyed you on the street, for example?), or using the words that are racial slurs used specifically to offend.