Groovybabe

The media were always going to be critical of the obese. I think of it as an opposing political party, we - the general public - point out their flaws in promoting Size Zero and they point out that we are just a bunch of apathetic, fat, unintelligent layabouts who have nothing better to do that watch/listen/read the banality they produce. Of course, this is mass generalisation on both sides but believe me, these viewpoints do exist.

I don’t believe you can be healthy or of optimum health if you are obese. I saw a statement that said “You can be healthy at any size” and someone commented that you should add something along the lines of if you are obese/disabled whatever then ill health is not always a by product of your girth. I don’t believe you can be healthy as an obese person because you cannot move around as well as a normal weight person (although admittedly you can be fitter than a lazy slim person) and you are putting abnormal strain on all your vital organs. And while if you are ill it *may* not be down to being fat alone, there is a good chance that your recovery rate would be quicker if you do not have half your body weight floating around your midriff.

So with these viewpoints in mind it was interesting for me to be exposed to the obesity “project” the government and therefore the media have taken upon themselves. We have been told for months and months how being fat is bad. And we have to do something now before the world is destroyed by the fatties!! (Something that has been picked up by Pixar, no less.)

It was when all media channels in the UK picked up that Obesity More Risk Than Smoking for Cancer that made me stand up and take notice. Just the week before it had been reported that Obesity can shorten your life by 13 years, whereas smoking will “only” shorten it by ten years. Now this. As if telling us that the NHS will not operate on the obese or smokers until they quit their addiction, and how a 30-stone woman couldn’t go into hospital because the floor would not hold her was not scary enough. (So 2 15 stone women could not stand on the same floor of the hospital? Or four normal weight people? Please!) But now there were reports that if you over eat you are basically giving an open invite to the cancer cells to bed down and multiply. ‘Oh no!’, I thought, ‘given that the average person in the UK is a size 16 (one size smaller than my current size) that is going to be some burden for the NHS.’ But then I realised that is the point of these drama-induced reports. The NHS is bleeding (ha!) money (as I am sure are American hospitals) and needs to plaster (haha!) over the cracks in any way they can. So why not target the vulnerable? Well I guess if you are using a hospital you are vulnerable in some way or other. But still. If in doubt, blame the fatties. These reports saying nothing of who funded the reports. It doesn’t even acknowledge that if you smoke, you are directly abusing your lungs. This post explains what I am trying to say far better than I could ever hope to. It just seems to me that the obese are the last group of people it is okay to discriminate against.

But again I want to reiterate I do not think it is okay to be obese and it is certainly not physically or mentally healthy. My point is just that does not make it okay to ridicule those that struggle with their weight. I know the news reporting is not ridiculing the fatties, but their constant finger pointing is bound to lead to ridiculing by the healthy general public onto the obese out there. They should be setting an example. I guess they think they are in “tackling” obesity but there are right and wrong ways of going about things, and highlighting points made about obesity causing cancer by a research that is funded by a diet company is not really the right way of going about it. It takes me back to my first point about the media viewing fatties as “a bunch of apathetic, fat, unintelligent layabouts who have nothing better to do that watch/listen/read the banality they produce”.

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