Like a Can Opener in a Worm Factory

(Edit prior to posting) This has gotten rather long and has become something of an 'as I see it' and 'I assume it's like' sort of thing. I'd really appreciate knowing whether this is even close to what's really going on, or whether, as an outsider, I'm seeing something which completely misses the point.

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It does make sense, which seems a little wrong to admit, if I'm honest. We, the 'considerate and right-thinking intellectual elite' are encouraged to leap on the bandwagon of declaring that 'people really see all bodies as beautiful and love to see them in all their variety', and while it may certainly be true of the individual, it is simply not true of the people as a whole.
The people as a whole follow the media. The media define our culture and, despite our protestations to the contrary, we are sheep before the shepherd's crook when it comes to media imagery.
It makes sense that you measure yourself against these presented ideals and it makes sense that, despite anything rational you might understand to be the case, you see yourself as failing to provide people with what they want; *the people themselves* are often convinced that they should uphold these images as the ideal.
I remember a pop group from several years ago (possibly a pop duo actually, and not quite mainstream pop, if I recall) with overweight members. I remember being surprised to see them 'making it' as celebrities and remember feeling scorn for them being overweight. I don't remember feeling *scorn* for any of the underweight pop stars being thin, despite thinking they *were* too thin. Rationally, I don't think thin is automatically better than fat, but as an instinctive agent of popular culture I clearly *do* react that way.
The worst part, from my perspective, is that we've been encouraged to see thinness as a product of conscious effort to achieve a goal, and thus automatically more worthy of praise on account of showing dedication, but encouraged to see fatness as a product of not caring about oneself, about one's physical wellbeing and appearance, and thus automatically more worthy of scorn. Conscious effort is certainly laudable when the goal is laudable, but we've simply *been told* that thinness is laudable, and we're happy to agree.
You put others ahead of yourself, which is an often-praised habit for people to have, so why *wouldn't* you try to give people what they appear to want, especially when you have to work for it, which is a positive thing in itself? The fact that many thin people probably have less concern for their wellbeing than overweight people, that many overweight people may be putting in more conscious effort to achieve a goal of a healthy ideal weight, is irrelevant, we are told that fat people are lazy and unhealthy and that thin people put valuable effort into their beauty. If I'm honest, I know which I would rather be.

I may react with gut-level horror that it makes sense, I may understand completely why it is wrong, but that doesn't mean I can deny that it does make sense.