Monday, February 27, 2006

Now I've started, I can't stop.

Here's another thought for the day - since when did it become politically-incorrect to be thin? Like my contemporaries, I read 'Fat is a feminist issue' and sympathised with the sentiments expressed; I fully-supported the struggle of overweight people to receive the same respect as everyone else.

However, in the last few years there has been a subtle, but definite shift. Whilst it has now rightly become unacceptable to use derogatory comments about anyone carrying excess poundage, the same cannot be said for those of us who are thin. Newspapers and magazines, and even the broadcast media, appear unable to use the word 'thin' without prefacing it with derogatory terms such as 'stick' or 'skeletally'.

As I understand it, obesity poses a greater threat to health than does anorexia, so whilst I have supported attempts to make magazine editors more responsible in their choice of role models for young people, can it really be sensible to make thin people the new bogeymen and women?

As a non-dieting size 6 myself, I am sick and tired of trying to find clothes small enough to fit me outside of the children's department. When I do succeed (rarely and usually only in Topshop) there are hardly any items in that size, but lots and lots of size 16s - and I have to pay the same amount for my small scrap of fabric as someone twice my size. How can this be an incentive to people to avoid obesity? Get thin and never be able to find that dress you love in your size - yeah, great. No thanks.

For goodness' sake, let's not allow political correctness to send us mad. Thin people are generally healthier than obese people. There are fat people and there are thin. All of us are entitled to the same respect we would like for ourselves - so please tell me why, when I would not dream of commenting on a person's excess weight, even strangers feel free to make remarks to me along the lines of 'My God, you're so thin. You don't eat enough' or calling me 'stick-thin' etcetera. Yes, fat people have feelings. Newsflash - so do thin ones!