Sunday, March 11, 2007

Why are poor people fat and rich people thin?


FOLLOWING ON from last week, and it’s like a game of terminal Top Trumps. First we had a 14-stone eight year old, then a 15-stone nine year old, both finally steamrollered in the porker parade by a 25-stone, size 32, 15-year-old called Natalie Cox.

(That’s a lot of figures in one paragraph for anyone who was educated after 1972, but bear with me.)

Natalie’s mother – herself weighing in at 16 stone, obviously – says that her daughter’s addiction to food is so severe that she once resorted to eating the leftover scraps of a family meal from the dog’s dinner bowl. “She just can’t stop eating. She loves food. The first thing she’ll do when she gets in from school is go straight to the cupboard for a load of biscuits then onto the fridge to see what she can get her hands on.”

Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to her that if she stopped buying bulk supplies of Bourbons or container loads of junk food for the fridge, her porcine offspring would have no choice but to gnaw on a turnip for amusement.

But wait. What’s this coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Well, yes. It’s the latest entrant in the National Clottery, a 42-stone mother-of-four who’s claiming that she’s been “left to die” because the NHS won’t pay to treat obese people.

Sharon Mevsimler, 37, has so much strain on her heart and lungs that she claims that she is permanently connected to an oxygen tank. (Well she can’t be permanently connected, can she? She somehow manages to prise the mask away long enough to shove down the occasional pie.)

Of course, it’s not Sharon’s fault – it’s down to her local health trust for refusing to cough up the £5,000 a week required to treat her in a private clinic. Put that in the context of the £2.50 a day needed to treat sufferers of Old Timers’ Disease and you can see their point.

One thing strikes me about this literal landslide of obesity. The “victims” are all from poor families. Now I don’t mean 1950s poor; all cardboard shoes and rickets. I mean 2007 poor; plasma screens, DVDs, PX2s, STDs and mobile phones, but without the necessary cash to smoke Silk Cut instead of Tesco Value gaspers.

But surely it’s the poor people who should be thin, and the rich people who should be fat? Look back through history and it’s always been famine for the riff-raff and feast for the wealthy. So when did the balance tip? And why?

I blame vegetarians. And cyclists, and Guardian readers, and bandwagon-jumping politicians, and the middle-class yummy mummies who willingly pay a fiver for a bunch of rapidly-wilting organic broccoli from the trendy farm shop before driving it home in their unnecessary 4x4s. These are the people who have priced the underclass out of the basic, seasonable vegetable market.

(It’s the same with bread. When I were a lad, only poor people baked their own bread. Now it’s strictly the province of the ciabattering classes, with their £100-a-pop machines, their strong Canadian flour and their expensive imported yeast. The rest of us muddle along with a Warburton’s sliced white, although even that is now approaching a quid a loaf.)

Our chavs, povs and scrotes are now reduced to foraging for food in the frozen wastes of Iceland. Or Lidl, or Aldi, or anywhere that Findus Crispy Pancakes and oven chips can be found on a two-for-one offer.

Mind you, I suppose that it’s not all bad news. If we accept that fat people are generally more jolly, then Sharon must be an absolute riot at parties.

NOW I
know that some of you think that I’m going soft, but some of the anomalies of our legal system have caused me much concern in the past week.

On one hand we have the Attorney General legging it up and down The Strand, credibility flapping out of the back of his trousers as he desperately tries to gag the BBC, The Guardian and the Daily Mail amongst others to stop them discussing new evidence in the Cash for Honours scandal – a duty that undoubtedly suits the government.

On the other hand we have comparatively Draconian prison sentences handed down to those who have offended the Establishment in other ways – and for whom punitive new laws have been especially introduced.

Now I have no truck with animal rights protesters. I think that they are cowardly, small-minded, selfish scum who would soon change their tune were they to need a cancer-fighting drug that had been developed in laboratories that used animals. I despise their tactics of bullying small companies and digging up the remains of people’s grandmothers.

But this week saw three animal rights activists jailed for between 15 months and four years for taking part in a campaign of “intimidation” which seemed to mainly consist of shouting insults at passing scientists. No arson, no nail bombs, no digging up your Gran; just a bit of shouting.

These sentences are recommended under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The investigation and subsequent prosecution was conducted by the CPS and the Police National Domestic Extremism Team. I don’t know about you, but at a time when paedophiles are getting off with a smacked wrist (or even getting off on a smacked wrist), I find this a little bit frightening.

21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bazza is Mike Bentley!

11:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, stone me, so he is....

He has to be someone, though. D'yer reckon Bentley's his own name, either? Makes more sense than Beelzebub, but canny blighters, these journos.

2:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It reminds me that not too long ago, an environmentalist torched three SUVs in car business as a political statement. He took measures that no one would be hurt. He got 22 years in prison. Even the owner said that the sentence was extreme.

Almost at the same time, a fellow who raped and murdered an elderly women gets 5 years in prison.

Both cases' sentences are repugnant to me. But put them together and it becomes beyond belief to me.

Unfortunately, our legal system is evolving even more yet to punish property or profit destruction more than sexual or physical violence against people.

What is worse about the UK situation is that these people have children, one is even a grandmother. They are basically orphaning children because their parents threw hostile insults. Yep, thats the wisdom of justice there.

11:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So here I am. 39 year old white male. 19 stone. Hospital told me to lose weight. Wife put me on a diet. No crisps, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, spirits (2 cans of lager per night only), chips, burgers, pizza's etc. All enforced with a middle-class wife's rod of iron and a bit of self-control at lunchtime when at work. No social workers, no journalists, no self-publicising gestures and guess what? The weight is coming off. Slowly, and yes I'd love a pizza, but they are bad for me so I can't have one.

Life's tough. If you get to a certain point and the doc's say "stop shovelling so many groceries down your neck or you will die!", then that's what you need to do! That's what the rest of us do! But because we are just blokes with wives, we do that without recourse to public bleating. We do it the old fashioned way with a bit of nagging and a bit of willpower.

3:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

don't treat the fat, the smokers, the wastrels or the French...and let Darwin take his tolll

6:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am canadian, so I don't know what a stone = in pounds, but I can garentee you I am up there in the "discustingly fat" section of the world. I am a girl, 24 and 240 pounds. We eat crap because crap is more expencive than vegtables. If I can get a 40 pack of microvavable noodles for 10 dollars, or a head of letus, a pack of mushrooms and some potatoes I'll do it. I am poor. really poor. and if I can "feed" myself for a week on 10 bucks as aposed to 3 days that id what I have to do. It sucks, I don't like it, but it's life. The situation might be different over there, and the money sure is, but this is happeneing all over the place.

Rich can aford better food. And welcome to the way the world works according to the society we have created.

9:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LESS!!! Crap is LESS expencive... apparently I also fall into the uneducated bracket of society :P

9:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ah come on losers!! anyone person can lose weight have 3 meals a day breakfast fruit with wheetabix and lunch sandwitch then salad EAT WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY EAT LOW FAT! NEVER TO GAIN A POUND!

12:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I come from a very poor family. However you don't have to eat crap that will make you fat. It is not what you eat it is the amount that you eat becasue of the depression that you feel, that develops the hunger inside you in order to satisfy your self worth. any one knows that lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes are inexpensive. You can buy chicken and boil it along with potatoes to have a wonderful chiken soup. you don't have to be rich to eat this way. Many of you may live in the past you have to let the past be gone and begin to live now. so it is bulshit if you tell me or anyone that rich people can eat better becasue they can afford it. Poor people have a tendency to blame their unfortunate misgivings on everyone but them selves and eat such high fat content food to satisfy thier own needs. You need to wake up and start a new day go for long walks, enjoy the outside more don't get bogged down in the iviong room and blame your fat on others. You need to begin to live life to the fullest of your own selves. If I could do it anyone can. Be good Be humble and most be truthful to yourselves. Love yourself love you neighbor adn enjoy life for now to the end of your life. until you do this you will never be happy and you will always blame others for your own destruction. Love yourself fully, Bill

7:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ok, if u guys are so poor, why are on a 700-1500 dollar computer? nice try

8:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dog food scraps?

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

10:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The normal male only needs 2000 calories or there abouts. Eat your 2000 calories and then stop eating for the day. I believe that making your food from scratch is a lot less expensive than buying prepared foods. Maybe there's just a lot of stupid lazy people that would rather sit on their ample asses than learn how to make simple home cooked meals.

8:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

genetic/class heirachy.

1:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are the 1.5 per cent that are lucky to be rich and the rest of us can go jump!!! That doesn't mean we have to be fat. There are a lot of rich people hat are fat because they can afford to be. The problem is education from parents and the bullshit that is western society. We are lazy. We all know we should buy vegetables and cut them up and steam them but we are lazy because life sucks.

9:03 AM  
Blogger 최윤영 said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

12:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

whatever

12:55 AM  
Anonymous home for sale costa rica said...

hello guys, I like your blog is very interesting your subject .... I would like to receive information about this!

12:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A Call from Heavenly Father to you

Causes of yours heavenly Father on this Earth is for the goal of:
1. For fellowship with His only son Lord Jesus Christ.....1 cor 1:9

2. For Holy lives.....1 Thess 4:7

3. For Liberty from all sins......Gal 5:13

4. For enjoy Peace......1 Cor 7:15

5. For Glory and Virtue....2 Pet 1:3.

6. For Eternal Glory......2 Thess2:14

7. For Eternal life........1 Tim 6:12


So dear children of Almighty God,get this invitation and get victory in all circumstances and let us life lives for Eternal Supreme God....Amen
May God bless you a lot...amen [am remembering you in all my prayers and please get remember me in yours prayers..for more glory,and power from God,thank you]
yours brother in Lord Jesus
pastor satyanarayana[eleazar]
Comforter Prayer Felllowship
India.
cpfm34atyahoo.com

4:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i get $886.00 a month on disability, $600.00 goes to rent, even thou im only "allowed" $375.00 a month for rent, i cannot find a cheaper place, the rest comes out of my support $$. i have to pay my own power about $50 a month. that leaves me with $236.00 for 4 and sometimes 5 weeks. i am supposed to pay for clothes, pet food, yes i have a dog she protects me from the crackheads and sexual preditors i have to live next to, and stuff like toilet paper and shampoo. so how the hell am i supposed to buy healthy food? i get most of my food from a foodbank, but its all "bad" food, like mac n cheese n noodles cause its cheap. some days i cant even get out of bed. people look at me and say "why dont u just exercise and get fruits and vegatables" well it hurts to move and fruits n veggies r expencive. so here i sit, no way out, no hope to be better, i will die from this life style, but i have to eat. i have no choice.

11:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I come from a wealthy family and I have recently realized that being 5'5 and being a size 0 is very unlikely because most of the nation is fat and poor. Stop eating junk food and do jumping jacks for peat sake!

5:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of crap....oatmeal is cheap and cleans out the intestines of unwanted FAT and other stuff. Vegetables are cheap too and so is fruit and lean meats. Thing is it doesn't fill a glutton up and their body isn't used to it so they make excuses for not buying and eating it. Go for a walk, take a run you lazy, big butts!

9:19 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home