We Shouldn’t Tolerate Fatties

Our take on ways to tackle the army of ever expanding waistlines.

obesity

Recently, whilst rushing to a lecture, I was caught behind a rather rotund, slow-moving object that I eventually ascertained to be a human, bent double under the weight of not only her own skin, but straddling two industrial-size boxes of cookies.

Is it usual, in 2013, to assume the large majority of those cookies were for herself, and if not, what does this indicate about the aggregate tonnage of the British, and our acceptance of our ever-expanding guts?

Should we feel sorry for the obese? A recent bingo advert coined the popular “are you calling me fat?” riposte, which captures the mood of Britain’s larger citizens.

Yes. People call you fat because you are in fact, enormous.

Your sheer mass offends me, and it’s because of you that Britain has been described as the ”Fat Man of Europe”. I’d rather not live in an era when humans become the biggest land mammals on the planet.

Graphic anti-obesity campaign

You don’t have to be a consumer in the literal sense, a human pac-man devouring aisles in ASDA for fun. Unless of course you plan on consuming yourself, in which case don’t waste any time.

You’ve become so big that it’s now our problem (us being the humans whose lives aren’t dictated by fang-sized sweet teeth and an aggressive attitude to portions). Don’t tell us to mind our business. Mind your own girth, and we’ll mind ours.

Obesity is fast becoming Britain’s AIDS, except our plague has a face and sweats in the dole queue clutching a Boneless Banquet. Currently 24% of children between 2 and 15 are obese. Britain is so fat, even our cats are following suit and plumping up considerably.

Regional distribution of fatties

There seems to be an inherent paradox within Britain; on one hand we glorify ‘celebs’ for their “slimline figures” and beauty, yet we cannot keep ourselves from marching towards a spherical existence in front of the TV.

So what do we do? Doctors have called for a tax on fizzy drinks. Fair response, but all this will do is give the obese yet another excuse, another scapegoat for their self-inflicted condition.

We shouldn’t need the government to curb our collective waistline.

Obesity is a result of nothing but stupidity, laziness and gluttony. You wouldn’t accept these virtues in any other sense, so why forgive them now?

These problems are not the fault of society. We shouldn’t have to nationalise care for the idiots who have eaten themselves into diabetes, nor the human landmarks who require wheels to cart themselves towards their next snack.

Imagine a Britain in 50 years’ time, awash with orphans of unnecessary diseases courtesy of fast food and the rapidly vanishing incentives to use your legs. Maybe, one hopes, the horse-meat scandal will encourage people to consider what they are filling themselves with.

Then again, they might just switch from beefburgers to chicken nuggets. At least they’ll float when the icecaps melt.