It sounds like we have a similar approach to honesty. The way I see it the distinction between honesty and dishonesty is entirely in the intent. What is being communicated isn't always the literal thing being said. The same sort of interpretation employed with the "Do you have spare change?" is also what makes things like sarcasm still honest (as it's an understood change of meaning) and true statements that are meant to deceive dishonest. I see white lies as in the dishonest camp myself; if the best thing you can do is to avoid answering, that's the best you can do.
Delivery also makes a difference. There is some saying that "people who value brutal honesty value brutality more than honesty". Telling people the truth does not require one to be ugly and hostile. If you are being ugly and hostile while speaking the truth, it probably says you are an ugly hostile person more than it says the truth is ugly and hostile (though there are certainly cases where trying to frame it in a nicer way is extremely challenging if not impossible).
Taking the title of the article as an example to work with: As a woman who used to be quite plump, I found that some men liked me like that and had pleasant ways of remarking on the fact that I had generous curves. Observing honestly that a person is not thin does not automatically require one to agree that simply being fat is inherently something horrible and in desperate need of remedying, worthy of making one a social outcast who should promptly pursue personal torture to get in line with the social norms and expectations that "thin is in".
