Is it fat ... or fiction?

15/ 7/2008

ONE of the mysteries of our age is our relationship with body image. The media spews out thousands of pictures of wonderful figures, often airbrushed to perfection.

The unrealistic expectation of body image makes some women throw up their lunch deliberately and some men inject themselves with steroids to become beefy He-Men.

I suppose some men dispose of undigested meals in the toilet and some women give themselves jabs, too.

Most of us don’t hit those extremes. But in spite of gyms opening all over the place, national newspapers employing ‘slimming editors’ and the supermarket shelves groaning under the weight of diet products, most of us are getting fatter. In fact, two thirds of men and half of women in Greater Manchester are now overweight.

The problem just keeps getting worse. The NHS says that in 2006, 24 per cent of English adults were obese. As recently as 1993, the figure was just 15 per cent.

Apart from the aesthetic considerations of being lardy there are genuine health problems – increased risk of some cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

It’s no wonder the NHS is worried. It’s going to pick up the pieces sooner or later and that will cost money.

There’s even a thing called the National Obesity Forum. Its chair, Professor Colin Waine, uses the sort of language disparaged by Tory leader David Cameron in his recent comments about the issue.

Prof Waine said: "We need to have clinicians working with obese people to reduce their risk profile, improve their quality of life and their longevity as well."

Cameron moaned about language such as "at risk of obesity". He prefers plain speaking like ‘you eat too much’ or ‘you don’t do enough exercise’.

I went to Wigan, the fattest town in the north west, for a story on the issue for Channel M News. My cameraman, Verdy, and I had to surreptitiously film some overweight people to illustrate the story. We didn’t have to wait long to capture some bouncing bellies and wobbly bots.

We also talked to some of them – Wiganers; not bellies or the bums. While people were not keen to agree with David Cameron just because he’s David Cameron, they did seem to agree that it’s up to the individual to lose weight – it’s not up to the NHS to mollycoddle them.

Hang on, though. Do the overweight really know they’re overweight? Apparently not.

A quarter of them reckon they’re within healthy limits, according to the British Medical Journal.

And, just as we’ve been getting fatter as a nation, we’ve gone further and further into denial. Eighty-one per cent of them knew they were too fat in 1999.

So, it seems the NHS really does have to tell the fat that they’re overweight and what to do about it.

It has been publicising the Body Mass Index (weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres, squared). If you get over 25, you’re overweight.

If you’re over 30, you’re obese.

Mind you, if you’re a muscle-bound rugby player, you’ll be obese according to this. Time was that I was getting ‘chubby’, ‘big boned’, ‘pleasantly plump’, etc.

The solution was easy but hard work. I ate less, I ate better and I exercised. I lost two stone 14 years ago and have pretty much kept it off since. Later, I did some personal training and my instructor made me do lots of back exercises and work on my posture.

In two months I grew 2cm.

So perhaps I was never overweight, just underheight.

How’s that for kidding yourself?

Richard Butt edits Channel M’s early evening news – every weeknight from 5pm