Half Ton Son
Last night I forced Meeester to watch a programme on the telly that he had not wanted to watch at the time, so I had recorded it. He didn’t want to watch it because he said that doing so would be voyeuristic. This is after we had watched that bird off Shameless nimbly chew her own toenails on Celebrity Big Brother. Hmmm. The programme was “The Half Ton Son” about Billy, a nineteen year old from Houston- not the Scottish Houston, which has no drive in MacDonalds, to my knowledge but the US Houston which most certainly does.
Watching this documentary segued neatly in my brain to a debate that was raging over at Canadian Blogger Extraordinaire, Ex-Urban Pedestrian’s place about whether obese people should pay for an extra seat on an airplane or whether they should be allocated double seats as a matter of course. My comment was quite hardline. I claimed that being obese was effectively a life choice. Not a choice to be fat, but a choice to overeat, a series of choices made every meal time, every snack time, to ignore your better judgement, to ignore the signals given to you by your body, and eat more than you need. Watching the documentary about this boy last night who, at his peak, weighed over 67 stone, has done nothing to change my mind on this issue. Billy’s greed and eating problem was made doubly worse by a mother who was an enabler of his greed and a willing provider of too much food for her mollycoddled, spoiled son. She was as much to blame for his life threatening size as he was, if not more so. And he was quite happy to devolve responsibility to her.
Now according to the scales on WiiFit, just about everyone is obese, but how many people on a daily basis do you come into contact that are morbidly obese. Me, I used to work with someone who is. Yet, I never saw him eat. Other than that, no, it’s still not really that common to see people in the UK who have massive folds of fat hanging over their front bottom area, are wheezy just walking down a corridor, or who genuinely would need two seats on an airplane.
However in the US, it is extremely common, and I never really saw horrendously morbidly obese people until I worked in New Orleans in 1990. I was shocked and horrified at how human beings could morph into the size these people were. I genuinely had never seen people who looked like that before. And I live in Scotland home of the sliced sausage and the deep fried pizza! What were they doing that was different to the rest of the world?
As I worked in a restaurant which offered a limited selection of “All You Can Eat” items, I served a great deal of obese people. To a man, they all ordered Diet Coke with their 10 consecutive plates of deep fried shrimp or barbecue ribs. The first time I took someone’s diet drink order in this situation, I nearly choked from surprise. I thought they were taking the piss out of me.
The other waiters had a name for this type of customer, they were called “Salads”.
“Why ‘Salad’?” I asked.
“Because they always order a side salad and never touch it” said my colleague.
“Like some kind of coverup,” said another.
“Like the diet drink order?” I said. “Yes, like that. That’s a cover up too”.
People can be fat all over the world, but the level of obesity that I saw in the States horrified me. And running back and forth with the 7th consecutive plate of something that most people would only manage two of, for someone nudging 30 stone, yes, has made my opinions hardline about this. Little choices, mounting up to becoming something that becomes a health problem, which then becomes an addiction, which then becomes a human rights issue, which then becomes someone else’s fault for offering “All you Can Eat” items, or “Supersize” items, or no extra seat on an airline.
But this all started with little choices. Theirs, their mother’s, whoever…but choices all the same.
Not often we have a serious debate on the Misssives, but what do you think?
Stop Press: Gordon McLean of top blog Informationally Overloaded, who commented earlier here, has written his take on being fat. Read it.
Stop Stop Press: And XUP has opened the debate ever wider. This one will run and run…Read that too.
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The other day was the first anniversary of the Sco…
The other day was the first anniversary of the Scottish Smoking Ban in Public places (26 March). It’s been great, hasn’t it?
Let’s look at why it’s been the best idea Scotland has had since Mr Fleming found some mould in a coffee cup that he’d left under his bed, that he had an idea might fight infection. (We’ve invented all the best stuff by the way, it’s easy to think that just because we’re crap at football, we must be crap at everything else. As I write we’re 1-0 down to Italy…)
So why is the smoking ban a top idea:
Heaps of people have given up the fags. Could we reach a stage in the future where smoking looks a bit eccentric like taking snuff, driving a Sinclair C5 or having a mullet?
- You don’t stink like Deirdre Barlow’s thermal vest everytime you wake up from a night out.
- You don’t have to deny yourself an outfit cos it’s dry clean only and will cost you £7.50 in dry cleaning everytime you so much as look at a pub or club.
- Friendships have been made as smokers stand together in the cold outside pubs…aw bless…I like to see the stats on how many weddings have taken place from people who met in the smoking area outside a pub. Just think they can go halfers on an iron lung…So beautiful.
- The pubs haven’t gone out of business. People still want to go out with their mates. They are not individually sat at home on their own with 50 Malboro and a carry out.
- Young people are less likely to have a cigarette whilst pissed in a pub- cos they can’t! (That’s how I started- gave up in 1997) Again great to see stats on how many people’s first fag was one that they lit the wrong end of, or set their hair on fire because they were hammered. The figures will be high.
- Dying of lung cancer isn’t an occupational hazard if you want to work in the hospitality industry anymore.
- You never ever have to eat a meal in restaurant and nearly have a stroke getting upset about the git in the table next to you who lights up just as your meal arrives and blows smoke over your toddler sitting in the high chair directly in the blue smoke stratos.
- Public places are cleaner generally. White walls ARE white, not “nicotine sunset”. And the seats in pubs are not like a pair hookers tights; grubby and full of holes.
- (Hooker’s tights….my metaphors are so poetic, kind of Shakesperian, I think…”Shall I compare thee to a Hooker’s tights, thou art so stained and full of bombers….”)
- This is a corker. It’s just not like Scotland to be a forerunner in the health stakes. We stink at everything else and are a nation of pie eating, binge-drinking liabilities, but we are a nation ahead of our time on this one. England still can’t get this law passed. What’s wrong with you people, if the fag addicted Scots and Irish can do it so can you! Now all we have to do to further improve our health is put a ban on the production of Lorne Sausage.
- You can now take your kids for a pub lunch. I would never have done that before. I once took baby Louis briefly into Ma Camerons as the staff had a present for him when he was born (John and I were regulars before our social life was severely curtailed.) Anyway after a fifteen minute visit where he was handed round the bar by cooing ladies, I took the boy home and his previously divinely smelling baby hair smelled of smoke. I was horrified.
- Can I just point out that I did not visit the bar at 11.30pm on a Friday night with the bairn…just in case any of you are thinking of phoning the “social”.
- It’s not cool to smoke anymore, it’s just bloody freezing to stand outside with your legs turning corn-beef in your mini skirt and wedges. Mmmm attractive, girls!
- And what a hassle- nipping out every five minutes for a smoke- you’ll lose your seat when you go out, and miss half of what’s going on in the bar, and it being Scotland, you’ll get your hair-do rained on or blown to hell and back. Not worth it.
- Are the tobacco manufacturers losing heaps of money? Let’s hope so. They’ve had it pretty good for too long. You lied to us, cigarettes didn’t make us sexy! They just gave us bad skin, brown teeth and buggered up our insides!
So long may the ban reign, and let’s hope that Wales find it as good as we have when their ban starts next month. England are due to start it soon but still can’t make up their minds about how far to go. Not the English as such, just the MPs. At the moment they’re arguing over whether it’s just for the unwashed or if the posh nobs in private gentlemen’s clubs have to pitch in too. They are actually discussing this. In a serious manner. Like it’s a reasonable argument. For real. No really. It’s true.
So, here’s Jerry’s Final Thought:
It might take a generation to really make a huge difference to the nation’s health but this is the best thing we’ve ever done up here. That and inventing the telly. (It’s amazing the stuff you get done when there’s no telly to distract you….)
Pinch of snuff, anyone?
