An Englishman Asks If Political Correctness Is Making Folk Fat?
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As I said not too long ago and it has long been official, Britain is getting fatter and fatter. If some people get any fatter they may lose the ability to actually walk anywhere which, I suppose, would create a boom in the mobility scooter market. Every cloud and all that eh? What is to be done about it? Can anything be done about it? Is political correctness making matters worse?
The thing is. If you look at an old school photograph of mine, circa 1970, there are two fat kids in a school year of about 130 or so. If you looked at many school photographs today and that would be around half the school year being overweight to varying degrees, and quite possibly, more than half.
There is an organisation over here calling itself ‘Body Positive’. I only heard about it the other day so I’ve no idea whether it’s just over here in Blighty or elsewhere. In principle, I can see what it’s trying to do.
‘Body Positive’ is combating what has become known as ‘body shaming’ and I can, sort of, get that.
There are people out there who have physical disabilities resulting in more body fat than is ideal. There are people who are fat, not through greed or lack of exercise, but purely because of medical conditions. These people deserve protection from those who would insult them, offend them or simply hurt them verbally. Their unfortunate circumstances are not of their making. They should, indeed must, be allowed to live with dignity and, where necessary, understanding.
However, people in those categories are very much the minority – particularly when you are talking about obesity.
Most people who are fat to whatever degree, are fat because they eat too much of the wrong kind of food. They don’t exercise enough either. As a result, they just get fatter and fatter with greed and laziness.
Quite why people in this category should be protected from so-called ‘body shaming’ is beyond me and that is where political correctness is actually adding to the problem of increasing numbers of obese people.
You are not supposed to say ‘he is fat’ or ‘she is fat’ because it isn’t nice to say that. Well, I’m sorry, I am a bit fat. I say ‘a bit’ because I am overweight and could do with losing some. I am, however, almost anorexic compared to so many fat people today.
Now when you are overweight, you run the risk of health issues directly related to being overweight. The more overweight you are, the greater the risk of health issues. Everybody knows that.
It’s like smoking. It can, quite literally, kill you via the health issues it can cause. Smoking is a choice you make. Being fat is a choice you make – unless you have the misfortune to be in the minority were other issues make you fat.
Britain’s National Health Service provides free health care for all at the source. Financially it is struggling badly. One reason it is struggling is the middle management bureaucracy mishandling NHS funds. Another reason is our aging population. A third reason is people being unnecessarily fat through their own greed and laziness.
Along with smokers – of which I am one – fat people – of which I am also one to a degree – should be charged at source by the NHS for treatment they need directly related to being fat or because they smoke, or both.
It could be said that smokers do actually pay tax on their cigarettes and, generally, work and pay taxes too so, perhaps, there is an argument in favor of smokers continuing to receive free NHS treatment.
Fat people who are fat through greed and laziness are, in my view, another matter. Their fat-related ailments – diabetes, mobility issues, an inability to work and so on – are self-made. They should be charged for treatment directly related to being fat.
I doubt many would object to them receiving free help to lose weight mind you. That would be an investment and, of course, once slimmed down, their ailments would dramatically reduce thereby costing the NHS far less in the longer term.
This organisation, ‘Body Positive’, supports everybody who is fat regardless of the reason. That is a mistake. Their support, along with the general political correctness of the day, is starting to make being fat normal. Political correctness is normalizing having an ass like an elephant. That is stupid.
London’s Mayor Khan actually banned a poster on the London Underground advertising health supplements. The poster featured a slim and toned young lady in a bikini with the words ‘Beach body ready’. He banned it because, he said, it made people of ‘different body shapes’ as he called them, uncomfortable.
Oh boo hoo hoo. Poor fatties. What did he want on the health supplement poster then? A 350-pound whale of a woman? It was advertising health supplements for God’s sake!
What does he want a gym to do when advertising? Use a picture of me??? That will get the customers streaming to the gym – not. I suppose they could use me as the ‘before’ picture 🙂
Am I offended when some muscled toned he man advertises health foods or exercise machines? Of course not! I suck in my ample keg of a belly and wish I had the will and determination to look like him.
If political correctness isn’t checked soon Britain will become a country of human blobs of lard wobbling around on wheels transplanted in place of feet. Bloody big wheels too in many cases.
A woman died recently up my road. They had to use a crane to get her bloated body out of the living room window. Seriously: A crane!
I have no idea what was used for a hearse to take her for cremation. A tank? They probably needed the fire brigade to put the fire out.
There is a big difference between being cruel and speaking the truth. It can be a very fine line. Sometimes you have to be ‘cruel to be kind’ as Nick Lowe once sang. I think it was Nick Lowe anyway. Somebody else might have sung it too.
If you are obese because of any kind of medical condition, dignity and understanding must always be yours. Political correctness should be irrelevant.
If you are a bit rotund a la me then you should lose a few pounds for your healths sake.
If you are big and fat through greed and laziness and can no longer work, then you should apply to be a speed hump in the road. Everyone drives too fast around here. At least you would then be useful until you go POP!
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I don’t want to agree and how would you know if the person had a medical or any reason other than greed or eating the ‘wrong’ food for being fat, but why have so many fat people got tattoos?
True statement Glenn. Eventually it will.
Ah well, the world is coming to an end anyway.
Good grief. You told a mother to put her daughter on a diet! You chose nasty, instead of tell her keep practicing and maybe next year. That would have been nice.
It wouldn’t have been true though. The mother was grossly overweight, the father too. I happened to know there wasn’t any medical reason.
Allowing their daughter to go the same way amounted to child abuse in my view.
“skinny, rich and beautiful” So somebody showed you a picture of me? Any of those apply as long as you include “ustabe” in the sentence. I ustabe a lot of things.
I’m so sick of that misbegotten term used to disparage being a nice, decent, polite person. I refuse to use it and if it’s political it’s probably just political and nothing more.
What the heck is an ‘ustabe’???
Used to be
Neil can be a little thick at times. Oh, wait! Sorry, Neil. Didn’t mean to imply you’re fat, because you are, and it’s all because of those beer ads 🙂 I’m proud to point out that I lost 50 pounds over the last couple of years, and, as Glenn mentions, that shit is hard work. I’m still trying to lose another ten and have now managed 5 miles a day, running, and I’m enjoying it. I have a goal of ten. I’m losing weight not because of how I look, but because of how I feel. I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic a couple of years ago, and I knew I had to do something. My weight gain was certainly my fault, and not some politically correct conspiracy cooked up by liberals. Finally, I have a lot of friends who struggle with weight, and I don’t want to see them as speed bumps. It’s not always about laziness or greed, but both are human conditions. After all, I expect you could drink fewer beers, or you might well find yourself as one of those speed bumps ready to go POP.
Mike have you tried hot yoga, for those last few pounds? You will sweat that off in no time. Bonus, it will get you all bendy mcbenderton 🙂
Indeed I might! I am not remotely offended if someone says “Boy! Have you got fat”.
Admittedly it would be someone who knows me but it’s true and it’s my fault.
Body shaming only works if you’re ashamed of your body and, if you’re fat like me, it’s your own bloody fault!
Ah! Right! Ta x
AYUP we all should be skinny, rich and beautiful right Neil. Rest of my comment is deleted because I am just not in the mood for this shit today.
Don’t be silly. We should all be honest. If someone is fat through greed and laziness then they are fat through greed and laziness.
It isn’t body shaming it’s the truth.
I’m a bit fat through drinking too much beer. That’s honesty.
It is body shaming that person for being fat, no matter the reasons they may be fat. All the things you could possibly be in the world, be kind, it does not cost you anything and makes someone else feel a little better. Or be Batman, your choice.
That’s the point. If someone is grossly fat through their own greed rather than from a medical condition, be it physiological or psychological or, indeed, poverty resulting in poor diet then surely they need to be told.
Those in that category should not be told their fatness is fine.
Mine isn’t. It’s self induced through too much beer. We need honesty not kid gloves.
It DOES NOT MATTER the reason at all, that someone outside of you does this, that or the other. It is NOT our business to be the weight/fashion/looks police other than for the person we look at in the mirror.
It is when some lard ass tries to sit in my aeroplane seat as well as theirs!…as happened flying Glasgow to Heathrow a few years back.
They genuinely couldn’t fit in unless I got off – which I refused to do when asked would you believe???
I doubt we’d have made it airborne if she hadn’t got off!!!
Living in a State with a high proportion of retired people, I do see a lot of obesity. In fact the poorest states, particularly in the South are the fattest. I think it’s beyond argument that what one eats is the major factor. Americans eat something like 80 to 90 pounds of fried potatoes a year and around here everything else is fried too except for the beer and I’m waiting for that. But OK, sure, we have free will but that assumes that we all have the capability of exercising it to our own benefit. We are not all alike. Some people gamble, some people run marathons, some just can’t.
Having battled with weight since puberty I have to beg for some sympathy though. I’ve been fat, I’ve been really thin but that’s at the cost of eating 8 or 9 hundred calories a day and spending days at a gym. I’m getting rather old for so few calories being 73. I just shut down and I’m struggling again.
Does it help that the TeeVee pushes junk food, interspersed with ads for diet plans? Capitalism wants you to be fat and looking at the ads, Diabetes alone must make billions for certain companies.
My wife of course weights 86 pounds, eats all the time and things I don’t dare touch like ice cream. It’s not all about “lifestyle” Genetics play a significant part as does age. Hell no it’s not fair. But my point is that whether or not someone could lose a few hundred pounds, it’s not my business and even if it were I won’t go around chastising or mocking where there, but by the grace of you know who, go I. Sometimes being decent is still the decent thing and not political.
Being decent is, indeed, not a political thing.
I wouldn’t go out in the street and shout ‘Hey you fat git!’ at a total stranger – even if they weren’t entirely strangers and I knew their fatness was greed and laziness rather than medical.
By all means we should be decent but also, I think, honest.
As a former gymnastics coach many moons ago at my daughters junior school I trialed kids for the squad.
One little girl was so fat I nearly did my back in trying to get her on the vault.
Not surprisingly I didn’t select her for the squad (incidentally, we won every trophy going…possibly due to a great coach? 😉 … and a big head?)
Her mother asked why her ‘precious’ wasn’t selected.
“You need to put her on a major diet” I replied.
The headmaster winced. I was being honest.