Being too fat is bad for you!1!eleventy!!

Yes, it's a deliberately provocative title, and a rather naughty tease from me to the FA blogosphere. If you are hearing impaired or YouTube impaired,  you can find a transcript of this classic Fry & Laurie sketch here. It's lots of fun seeing Hugh Laurie back in the day when he was mostly playing a gormless idiot, instead of in his more recent role as Dr House. The delightful snarky skepticism remains a constant, whether it's being delivered by Fry or by Laurie.

The most relevant line here is at 2:41, with Stephen Fry's little rant:

Well of course too much is bad for you, that's
what "too much" means you blithering twat. If
you had too much water it would be bad for you,
wouldn't it? "Too much" precisely means that
quantity which is excessive, that's what it means.
Could you ever say "too much water is good for
you"? I mean if it's too much it's too much. Too
much of anything is too much. Obviously. Jesus.

So there. Being too fat is bad for you. Being too thin is bad for you. Drinking too much alcohol is bad for you. Drinking too much water is bad for you. Eating too much lettuce is bad for you. Ad nauseam, and ad infinitum, because that's simply what "too much" means!

Now let's refer back to my basic philosophy that I posted the other day.

Point one: so what if it's bad for you? If someone is doing something or has some condition that is bad for them, that gives no-one license to go around abusing them for it. Having an inherited tendency to heart disease is bad for you. Being poor is bad for you. Having cancer is bad for you, and so is having the flu. Also, being a woman, being short, being left-handed, being non-heterosexual, and being non-Caucasian all have demonstrably bad effects in certain societies.

We are all human, and we all have our own problems to deal with. Can there possibly be a single person in the world who has no innate health risks, and then never does anything that's bad for them, ever? I don't think so. I know it's very hard when you have to deal with the people whose problem is that they are sententious interfering narcissistic jerks, but do try to have a little compassion :)

Point two: I do not think that the current popular wisdom on what counts as "too much fat" is actually correct. I'm pretty damn sure that a BMI of 25, or 30, or even 40 is not the cutoff between OK and DOOOOOMED!! Probably it's variable with each person. And even for an individual, what their ideal healthy weight is at any given time of their life could still be quite variable. The research is just so NOT in. While I am of the general understanding that statistically the lowest death rates are found in people in the "overweight" rather than the "normal" group, I don't know what that means in practice. Can one actually change one's health risks by changing one's weight? Weight change may very well come with some nasty hidden costs.


Point three: I'm really not sure what would count as "too much fat" even for myself, let alone for any other given individual. And it's certainly not my business to tell anyone else what they should do about it.

And that's all one can say on that topic, really, except to reiterate the call for compassion with more seriousness. I would like to send blogger Heidi, who had gastric surgery, a great big hug, and tell her that she's fine and brave and wonderful. And especially, I want to tell her that she need not fear the reactions of her peers in the fatosphere. But if you read the tail end of the piece, where she posted an update on her own blog, it seems that I would have been wrong about that. Please, is it really so hard to be kind to one another?

A Very Good Start

The Federal Government may soon be cracking down on bogus weight loss schemes. This is very good news. There's an article and video here on, of all places, Murdoch's news.com. The Dietitians Association of Australia is on board with this - as noted in the article.

A spokesman told The Daily Telegraph all commercial diet programs should be assessed by a body of experts similar to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which assesses drugs for safety and efficacy before they can go on sale.

The association said regulation should require businesses marketing a diet program to provide evidence to a panel of experts showing what percentage of those who used the diet kept the weight off two years after starting.

Well, this could be a very radical step - and if actually followed up could be very enlightening. At the moment the rhetoric is all about "well, don't go for the dodgy sisters program, follow a sensible program instead". Because we all know there's an OMG OBESITY CRISIS!!! going on.

But, as is increasingly becoming common wisdom, diets don't work. If this is really followed through, there could be quite some surprises coming out. Choice magazine recently debunked the idea that buying your diet aids from a properly licensed pharmacy is a safe bet. Sadly, no - the consultants have minimal training, and many didn't even ask about important health factors. That story, from February this year, does not discuss effectiveness. But with a whole two hours of training on how to sell the program, just how much could there have been on the relevant scientific data? I'm guessing they haven't a clue whether it really works or not.

Even reputable programs like Weight Watchers (motto: "diets don't work, except ours because we call it a lifestyle change instead") could be caught with their pants down. Fatfu, an American Fat Acceptance blogger ran some stats on them and found that Oh yes, it does work - for maybe two in a thousand!

I'm not saying that no changes of any kind will ever permanently affect your weight, so just give up and eat two whole cakes now. There are actual lifestyle changes, and then there are "Lifestyle Changes Not A Diet Honest Guv". But here we are on a fresh new blog, all pretty in spring green. There's plenty more opportunity for me and my so far imaginary co-writers to go on at greater length about health, fitness, obesity and all that jazz. And I want to go to the gym now, so I'll stop.

Welcome one and all to Sweet FA, and expect more soon!