No one should shame fat people. But let's not pretend they can have attractive lovers

Telegraph

2 days ago

Fat is one of the most vexatious molecular structures in the human body. It's where appetites and pleasure meet complex reward circuits, emotional self-soothing and addiction. Where disgust and shame and pathology meet economic abundance and grotesque surplus. Where family warmth and social cohesion meet bad habits and the kind of pressure that messes people up for life.
Fat, or the attempt to get rid of it, spurs tales of discipline and willpower that yield bodily transformation that rivet millions, only for the whole thing to collapse like a soufflé and the weight pile back on. The industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fat is a deeply complex issue: the overeating and overreliance on fattening food that leads to obesity, the brain and gut chemistry, and the hormonal and glandular disorders that make it hard to stop eating, and fat even harder to shed, should never be mocked. Women in particular start in girlhood being intensely aware of their flesh. For most, it remains a lifelong obsession. For far too many, this yields eating disorders that can be life threatening.
But spare me the insanity of the fat justice movement, which is intimidating, mean, irrational, and vehemently anti-rational. It is highly dangerous to those it infects, and it is unkind and threatening to those it hasn't. It used to be that fat people were bullied. Now those who speak plainly about fat, even concerned professionals in the context of health, are the ones who have to fear bullying.
Just ask the NHS doctors walking on egg-shells around patients who are dangerously overweight. A freedom of information request revealed last week that at least 74 complaints were made last year to hospital managers by overweight and obese patients who claimed they had been 'fat-shamed' by doctors.
Doctors aren't always the smoothest communicators. Science-y people often aren't. It is certainly regrettable that one consultant is alleged to have told a patient their 'face was too fat'. Also far from ideal is the doctor at the Royal Free who supposedly told a patient to turn over carefully because 'it's only a slim bed'.
Less blameable, however, is the doctor who told the patient they were carrying 'two suitcases' in extra weight. It is often astounding when one lifts something up – weights, a child, a bag full of shopping – to consider that one is easily carrying that in excess fat alone. The doctor was probably trying to help the patient really understand the strain they were putting their body under.
There's a good reason doctors are now speaking frankly to patients about excess weight. It's costing an arm and a leg. In the past five years, the NHS has spent £40m on specialist equipment for bulky patients, such as beds, stretchers and chairs. The illnesses – including cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke – that are linked to obesity are a huge drain on resources as well as horrible for the sufferers. Thank God for Ozempic and Mounjaro, which the NHS is hoping to roll out more widely as a preventative measure.
'We do have a problem in this country with pussyfooting around stating the obvious,' says Martin Scurr, a GP. 'Sometimes, in order to be kind you have to risk being cruel. The main thing doctors have to do is get the message across about the health issue.'
But this view is all but drowned out by the lunacy of woke logic. 'Shaming' is everywhere. Meanwhile up is down. Left is right. Fat is beautiful. Fat is healthy. Fat is preferable. There's no such thing as obesity-related health problems. And if there are, it has nothing to do with the actions of the obese person. As Sarah Le Brocq, from the All About Obesity charity, put it: 'Obesity is a chronic condition – we wouldn't shame people for having cancer, so why do we do it for obesity?'
I agree with her. We should not shame fat people. We should focus on helping them find the desire to fight their fat and to live nice long healthy lives. Looking nice/hot/sexy/smart is a bonus. But dealing with the problem requires them to accept and participate, which they can only do by dropping the furious accusatory stance that says science is a means to shame them.