Are you fat?

Then hang your head in shame, as it's been open season for the fat-o-phobics this week. Firstly we have the Daily Mail (always a favourite, they love to have the word 'obese' on their front page as much as they like to have the word 'immigrant' on there...) screaming that obesity is worse than smoking. Is that because fewer smokers get old enough to develop the obesity-related diseases we are all prone to getting if we take our eyes off of the scales?

Apparently "An obese person dies on average nine years earlier than somebody of normal weight, while a very obese person's life is cut short by an average of 13 years." Maybe they just get bored with the constant lectures?

And when Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said that "in this obesogenic environment, it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good." it really incensed the Mail, and its readers. The comments on Max Hastings rant actually deserve to be reproduced, after I've picked his rant to pieces.

Apparently, he saw two women stuffing their faces at Wimbledon over the summer and wanted to tell them not to do it, because they were wrecking their lives. Well, I can't comment on why the women were scoffing their way through the tennis (mind you, it did rain a lot so they may have just been bored waiting for the play to resume...) but what I can say is that later on, Max tells us that:

"We are not remotely obsessed with health - Ms Primarolo (Heath Minister) would blow a fuse if she knew how much we drink every night. We simply want to be able still to see our feet over our stomachs when we get to 70."

Doesn't matter about the fact you openly admit to pickling your liver, and may not even get to 70, then? It's OK to drink too much because nobody can see you and judge you for it. Such a blatant hypocrite as well as an insufferable snob. He goes on to say that:

"One seldom, if ever, meets anyone rich and obese. The rich know better. They employ personal trainers, and keep whole rooms full of exercise equipment and rowing machines.

A cyclist is more likely to be a software tycoon than a shop assistant. Most upmarket women cherish their figures to the point of obsession. It is the less well-off, the less educated, who have succumbed disastrously to the cult of - to hell with the Medical Research Council, let us use the word - self-indulgence."

So, drinking too much isn't self indulgent? And what an arrogant prat. Where I come from, a cyclist is more likely to be a student than anything else, and as for being poor and badly educated, well I believe it's Mr Hastings that is showing his own ignorance here. I am neither poor (nor rich) or stupid, but I'm fat. How does he explain that paradox? Am I not an upmarket woman just because I'm not thin? I like to think of myself as very upmarket, thank you very much!

But even better than this smug diatribe are the comments that 'readers' have added in support.

  • "Obese adults cannot claim that they have no moral agency when it comes to buying and consuming food, but have moral agency when it comes to other life decisions, such as voting marrying and so on. Moral agency cannot be switched on and off at will"
    So...if you're fat you shouldn't be allowed to get married, or vote. Nice logic there...obviously calorie-deprived.(in case you aren't sure, Moral agency is "a person's capacity for making moral judgments and taking actions that comport with morality.")
  • "Obesity IS linked to laziness. People will use a car for a hundred yard drive to call in their shop for a newspaper"
    I don't know anybody who does that, do you?
  • "Laziness, the inability to learn anything that takes effort to acheive, the poor me culture, and the inability to take any responsibility for their own actions, thosse that follow this route only have themselves to blame."
    It gets better - now we're unable to learn anything and unable to take responsibility for ourselves. Oh dear.
  • "most fat people have a self-inflicted disability and it is their choice whether to address this or not."
    Are you annoyed yet? I don't consider myself in any way diabled. My ability to walk everywhere, swim non-stop until I get wrinkly fingers and workout in the gym would suggest that there's no physical impairment. But I do have a dodgy ankle. Does that count?
  • And, my personal favourite: "Just another way nature sorts out the fittest and those with the strongest will power from the rest. Natural selection at work. Life is still full of dangers despite the human race coming so far - drugs, alcohol, gun crime and gang violence - and now the threat of obesity. Those strong enough or wise enough will survive"
    Now fat people are as much of a threat as hoodies and gun crime! Oh, and this comment is ignoring a basic biological fact - sweetheart, who's going to last longer in a famine, a 15 stone woman or a 7 stone woman? Not being funny, but will power wouldn't do you any good if you were starving to death.

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