Thursday, June 08, 2006

Further to my last rant, I have been mulling over an unbelievable comment by Rosie Millard of the Sunday Times back in April, attached here.

Mummy, can I go on a diet?
ROSIE MILLARD


Nobody wants young people to become obese but paradoxically the looming epidemic of dangerously fat children across the West is due in no small measure to western worship of the stick-thin, lollipop-headed clotheshorse. An entire nation focused on Being Thin has turned our relationship with food from a pleasurable, civilised experience into a wholly unnatural affair involving processed meals, obsessive calorie counting, meal replacement drinks, bingeing, fasting and so on; all of which, more often than not, help to pile on the pounds.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-2124939,00.html



So now we thin people are not only responsible for supposedly encouraging millions of young people to become anorexic, but we're also responsible for encouraging millions of others to overeat. My God - is the world going mad? I eat what I need and no more. I have never forced food down anyone's neck, nor have I ever refused anyone I know food when they are hungry. Furthermore, I have never touted my own body shape as better than any other. However, I do take responsibility for what I, and my children, put in their mouths. Maybe it's about time others did the same - and also considered that if you don't eat more than you burn off by exercise, you don't generally get fat. I am sick to death of the growing victim culture in this country and political correctness gone mad.

More on victim culture later as I don'thave time for everything I have to say on this subject here. Despite having been in an occupation where political correctness would seem to be a requirement, I think it's about time we started saying the unsayable and returning to a situation where our first step should be to consider our own responsibilities. Now I'm sounding like my grandmother - but hey, maybe she had a point.