Fox 'expert' slams plus-size women: Realistic Disney characters mean 'Diabetes Princess'

A Fox News guest predicted on Thursday that if a teen girl was successful in her effort to get Disney to create realistic female characters that were not skinny then more young women would become obese.

In light of a Virginia teen's Change.org petition calling for "positive representation of plus-size females in the media," Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Meme Roth, who was billed as an expert on obesity, if it was time for Disney to move away from "the skinny standard."

"It's dangerous, it's unhealthy and we don't want to glorify obesity," Roth opined. "So, I understand that many people are overweight. But having a princess represent that is really not a great message."

Emme, one of the world's top plus-size models, pointed out that the petition had not called for an "obese" princess.

"She would like to have a princess that's a little bit more realistic, more normalized in size, so that more kids that represent the America will not feel left out in the kingdom," Emme explained. "There's only those kids that are having problems that with anorexia in droves, in epidemic proportions... She's really hitting home that's it's important to have more diverse representations of beauty for kids."

But for Roth, "plus size" meant that the characters had to be obese.

"If you're going to do a story with obesity then you're going to need to do a princess diabetes, princess cancer, princess fertility problems," Roth argued. "She specifically asked for a plus-size princess."

"Is plus size obese?" Hasselbeck wondered.

"She's asking for a plus-size princess!" Roth exclaimed. "Let's just stop and pause on that request! It's the same as asking for an anorexic princess. It's the same!"

Media Matters noted on Tuesday that it was "unclear why Fox presented Roth as qualified to speak" on the topic.

"Presenting Roth as an expert on body-image issues and entertaining her vitriolic remarks is merely a continuation of Fox & Friends' complicity with body-shaming."

Watch the video below from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast Feb. 6, 2016.