Monday 16th December
Wide awake at stupid o’clock in the morning with all sorts of thoughts running through my head, so I thought where’s the best place to deposit stupid thoughts and here we are.
Have you ever noticed how there are no obese news readers?
Why is that do you think?
I mean there are great news readers and reporters who are BAME or LGBT but not FAT.
You must be ultra thin, so you can talk about your latest marathon but you can’t be chubby and sit there cradling a Snickers.
You must be trim and dress in beautifully tailored suits but you can’t be stocky or big boned and wear slacks with elasticised waistbands.
You just cannot be fat and be on TV especially to read the news.
And, as a fatty myself, I’m going to own that word and use it for the rest of this blog.
If television is the place where diversity reigns supreme and we are supposed to see ourselves represented, where are the role models for all the fat kids who want to be news readers…or present any show on TV?
They can’t all end up as Mr Tumble can they?
If you want to see fat people on TV, it’s usually in a documentary where someone weighing 147 stone is trapped in their bedroom and has to be rescued by lots of very fit fireman and slim doctors.
Or the other time you see fat people on TV, it’s so they can be laughed at; but that’s OK isn’t it, because fat people are jolly and don’t mind a bit of leg pulling? (NB, please don’t try pulling a really fat persons leg on your own, you can get a serious back injury).
We are at that time of year when lots of thin people pad themselves up to become fat and jolly, because Santa can be fat.
Can Santa be black?
(Just thought I’d drop that in to set all the Daily Mail readers off).
I live in Mansfield, a town which has a local council and a former Mayor, that condones casual racism. I’m guessing very few people would accept and understand when and how they are being racist though.
I’d go even further and say that making jokes about fat people would be thought of as fine, and easy to do. As easy as a fat person falling from his chair as he struggles to reach his next burger and fries.
Fat people are lazy, greedy and make bad choices and so we cannot put them on TV to read the news because no one would be paying attention to the stories; they’d either be too disgusted to watch or they’d be making jokes about their size.
Maybe some fat people at home wouldn’t watch, as they’d feel uncomfortable seeing what they look like through the eyes of others, and let me tell you that’s one thing that fat people do think about a lot.
I understand there has been some research done about how we judge people, people that we see for the first time.
If someone you have not met before walks into a room, perhaps a man, in a plain blue suit, and it’s clear to see that he is weighing in at well over 25 stones, then be honest, how’d you describe him?
Fat man in blue suit? OK you might not say ‘fat’, you might be one of those people who use ‘obese’ or ‘overweight’ and I thank you for the thoughtfulness but you’re still describing him by his appearance.
You can replace ‘fat’ for ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ and still get the point I think.
All of those words carry their own baggage, and with ‘fat’, well there are just not many positive feelings about fat people.
The world is allowed to hate and shame fat folk without regard to their personal feelings and all because you think us fat people can change.
We don’t need to see ourselves represented on TV, reading the news, because we don’t need to exist.
Except for news reports about the obesity epidemic…then you need us. How else would you film all of those shots of faceless belly’s wobbling down working class streets?
And let’s not forget, fat also equals poor. There are no rich fat people, that’s because the rich live on a diet of quail and cocaine neither of which are fattening, even with a side order of fries.
On the inside of every poor fat person is a rich thin person trying to get out…yes, we ate them for breakfast.
Are there days when I’d like to be thinner…of course there are.
There are days when I’d like to be younger, more handsome, be able to play the piano and sing like Pavarotti too (or a thin opera singer).
But today I am just me, an ageing fat man, with more chins than a…whoops!
I can accept that most of the time. But it’s on days like that when I look on TV and think…why are there no fat news readers?
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