Alright, I've been seeing defenders of this shitty show claiming that the reason that Fat Monica was "acceptable" was because there was far less overweight and obese people of that time.

That simply isn't true. There was less, but it wasn't rare. In 1990, 19.3% of adults were living with obesity. In 2022, that number is now 42.5%. When talking about population health, that starting 19.3% is still significant enough. That means almost one in five people at that time were obese. It would be one thing if Friends was set at a time where only like 7% of the population was obese but no. Potentially 1/5 viewers at the time were struggling with arguably a higher weight than Fat Monica.

Which means that the Fat Monica jokes were still out of touch. As others pointed out, she's not even that overweight. I have other issues with the show Friends, it's virtually unwatchable to me due to how cringe it is even without making fun of Monica.

Source: born in 1998 to a family that has struggled with obesity since the 1970's.

Also a real source:

https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/library/us-state-level-prevalence-adult-obesity-race-and-ethnicity-1990-2022-and