So we are the fattipuffs of Europe. Somebody had to be. The British, among their many other hobbies and extraordinary attributes, obviously enjoy overeating. And it appears that nothing — no television diet guru examining our excretions, no Messiah-like chef tossing buckets of undigested fat in front of us, no bossy government leaflets imploring us to eat more vegetables — is going to change that.
Does it matter? Not to the fattipuffs, clearly, or they would do something about it. Not to the rest of the British public either. Or if it does, it really shouldn’t. It is none of our business. I just wish someone could persuade this irritating government that it’s none of its business either.
Fat fascists and government spokespeople, when voicing their peculiar disapproval of other people’s body mass index (BMI), often come up with spurious figures regarding the cost of obesity to the National Health Service.
Apparently if you include the wear and tear on hospital lavatory seats, the stress on nurses at having to deal with such irresponsible patients and so on, this extra cost can spiral into billions. Fat people get ill more, so the argument goes, and since we taxpayers have to pay for the consequences, we have every right to bully fat people into getting thin again.
It is a loathsome argument: the same one that is used when trying to control smokers and drinkers. No doubt it will be used against people who slouch too much in front of their computers, or who take exercise without stretching first or who choose, against all advice, to look directly at the sun. Extend the argument still further and there is no reason why it couldn’t be used to enforce the screening of unborn children: hell, we could get shot of the duffers before they were even fully formed. Why not? Imagine all the taxpayers’ money that could be saved.
The NHS, it should never be forgotten, is a service run by the government but paid for by the people. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tool with which to control us. Also (although I’m loath to indulge this line of argument), it’s clearly a nonsense to pretend that fat people, in the long run, cost the public purse any more than the rest of the population. If fat people get ill more, the chances are they are going to die earlier, too.
So while the rest of us health freaks mince around on Zimmer frames, demanding expensive drugs for the other debilitating diseases waiting to take us out, the fat people will already be dead. No requests from them for geriatric medical care, free bus passes and measly pensions. With obesity rates rising at the rate that we’re told they are, the public purse ought soon to be positively bulging.
But never mind all that, never mind the logic of it: that was never the point. This government simply can’t resist an opportunity to nag. If it’s not about fatness, it’s about thinness; it’s about our liquid intake during heatwaves, our alcohol intake over Christmas, the temperature of our baths, the frequency of our lavatory flushing, the hoods on our sweatshirts, the veils on our faces. It will come up with a guideline for anything to keep its stultifying presence on the front pages. Anything to show us it cares.
This week, in response to the wretched fatness survey, it has truly excelled itself. Healthy diet has been the subject to worry about, and even the chancellor of the exchequer has felt inspired to contribute to the debate. He has let it be known (in case we were wondering) that he “always” has two portions of vegetables at lunch and that he can often be seen “munching an apple or an orange” around the office.
A spokesman for Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary (who, it is claimed, eats “infinitely more” than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day), has released the news that she enjoys “very, very regular bowel movements”. Which is marvellous, but perhaps a case of too much information.
If we are to believe their spokespeople, government ministers are an example to us all, only ever enjoying the occasional glass of wine, always eating up their greens and often having rowing machines in their offices. If only we could be more like them.
Thankfully Caroline Flint, our new minister for fitness, has announced a new initiative to help us to catch up. She wants to impel supermarkets to offer lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables because, she says, there are people out there who find fresh fruit and vegetables “scary”.
Ho hum. An example of a new victim group cleverly unearthed by sensitive ministers or just one more case of an exhausted government dribbling into its geriatric bib? I almost feel sorry for them.
Then there are the thinnifers. Another problem, another call for a ban. Why do so many people think banning things is the only answer? I refer to the banning of very thin people from the catwalk, a place which we know to be their historical home. A collection of doctors and other eating disorder experts have joined together to make a formal request to the fashion industry not to employ models below a certain weight. It has been mooted that London Fashion Week should have its subsidies suspended (all in favour of that) if it refuses to comply.
Having struggled for years with the problem in my teens and early twenties, I have some inkling of the madness which settles in an anorexic’s head. Of course I can’t speak for them all, but I can speak from experience. And to suggest that the banning of models with the wrong BMI might in some way alter an anorexic’s approach to her own body, or to flesh in general, seems pretty facile to me.
Young women starve themselves for all sorts of reasons but mostly, I think, as a muddle-headed response to their own internal chaos: body weight is one of the few aspects of life which feels controllable. The truth is that you could put anyone you wanted on the catwalk — put Dawn French up there — but I don’t believe it would change a thing. Anorexics see the world through different eyes.
I used to look in near revulsion at supermodel Cindy Crawford, a woman who, at the peak of my madness, was lauded as one of the most desirable women on earth. I couldn’t comprehend it. I used to be disgusted by the gargantuan size of her thighs. When people said she looked wonderful, I thought they were the mad ones; either that or they were lying.
The fashion industry is being asked to present a more realistic image of women to the world. But fashion isn’t about realistic images, it’s about fantasy — and art. There’s something pretty wrong with a society that wants to ban that.
daisy.waugh@sunday-times.co.uk
