Why F.A.T is a Four Letter Word: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45826.html

There’s a fat war raging and it relates to comments about body size from Mia Freedman, chair of the National Body Image Advisory Group and a subsequent response from ethicist Leslie Cannold.

Online fat activists are yelping about negative community attitudes towards obese people. Some have even called for Ms Freedman's dismissal.

Why can't we talk about obesity? Raise the issue and the speaker becomes a bigot or a hypocrite. Online sites allow freedom of expression to shoot the messenger. Better that than listen to a confronting message. Or should we continue to behave like the fashion industry and ignore the presence of widespread obesity?

A visiting alien might glance at a fashion magazine and wonder why skinny women feature in all the photos while fat women walk the streets. Most of the clothing shops near my house cater for pint-sized teenage girls. These businesses have come under fire in the past because they do not stock higher sizes. Walk inside and feel fat if you wear a size 12. Skin tight boob tubes and skirts which sit just under skinny little bottoms: anyone with normal curves can’t wear this fashion, let alone the obese.

If your daughter aspires to be fashionable and shop in these places, be afraid as she leaves the house resembling an underfed prostitute.

One particularly seedy clothing chain has located its Sydney stores almost exclusively in the city, the eastern suburbs and the north shore. Perhaps the bosses don’t think fat woman live in these neighbourhoods. They would be correct.

Interestingly, the fat lobby has made noises about this issue. They seek attention on matters relating to obesity, but only when it suits them.

There is an elephant in the corner and it is trumpeting a message. Obesity is a class issue.

Thankfully a recent study has shown small improvements in obesity levels among preschoolers. Boyd Swinburn, the director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, said the fall began after childhood obesity started to receive attention in the early 2000s.

Children from poorer families have benefited most from the turnaround. Among the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, the prevalence of obesity fell slightly between 1999 and 2007.This is welcome news, but what happens when preschoolers grow up?

A Victorian Government website is careful to note that “people with lower levels of education and lower incomes are more likely to be overweight or obese. This may be because they have less opportunity to eat healthy foods and take part in physical activities”.

No judgement here, but the facts speak for themselves. Next time anyone comments about all those fat people in America, be sure to laugh. That country is full of them, but just as there are very few fat people in affluent San Francisco or Manhattan, there aren’t too many in Sydney’s wealthier suburbs either.

If you want to find fat people, stroll through the foyer of your local public hospital. Hop in the lift, find a ward and check out the bloated bodies lying in the beds. It is truly frightening. It is as if you have entered the sick bay on Land of the Giants. The health system is clogged full of seriously overweight people, but when their doctors advise weight loss, some will go shopping and find another GP with a more forgiving bedside manner.

The latest medical drama in NSW is the $1.5 million which the Health Department has just dished out for five new “mega-lift” ambulances to transport people who weigh more than 180 kilograms and who cannot fit on a normal ambulance stretcher. There were 45 patients this size in 2002. By 2008 this number had risen to 576.

I am not suggesting a public flogging, but this nation needs to face up to its rapidly growing obesity problem. There is no point heckling the brave who dare to speak.

Perhaps we should cancel cooking shows and replace them with weekly episodes featuring Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Programme which began in 2001 and has since been rolled out in 180 primary schools across all states and territories of Australia. This wise chef is putting her energy into educating children about the goodness, satisfaction and joy around home cooking with healthy produce. One campaigner’s antidote to Maccas. God bless her.

Some might recall Norm from the 'Life Be in It' campaign launched 35 years ago. That little guy was supposed to reflect the inactivity, obesity and lethargy problems endemic in our community. We were supposed to recognise the Norm in all of us. He was popular because he had a sense of humour. We could relate to him. He was credible and like a lot of Australians back then, he made his point in a light-hearted fashion.

Guess what happened to Norm? People started to copy his "couch potato" approach.

A Good Bargain and a Glass of Milk

Finding a bargain out there in consumer land has never been trickier. Every dollar saved brings on a crisis of conscience.

Lately I reflect on some items I buy and I am infused with guilt. Never before has shopping involved so much introspection and deliberation. Bargain hunting is selfish these days. We must consider the plight of others.

First of all: online book shopping. Many book lovers I know use a UK-based bookstore which sends cheap books, postage free. I have bought books from there once or twice, but guilt, impatience and a preference for shopping at a local haven has stymied massive bargain hunting online. I don’t want to wait the usual three weeks to receive a book and nothing beats a coffee and a wander around the local bookshop. My personal preference means I pay up to $20 more for each book purchased in the sweet old-fashioned way.

My gesture is too little, too late. Several weeks ago I received a plaintive email from the local bookshop proprietor who cited a convergence of crises plaguing the industry, including the online shopping boom, the strength of the Australian dollar and the proliferation of e-readers as her reasons for closing.

She hopes the industry survives this state of flux and signs off with the heart-rending “I love my bookshop and I’m sorry we don’t have a home now; I’ve loved every second of it”.

I feel sad about the loss of her business. Not to mention that every shopping precinct large or small is enhanced by a bookshop and the landscape around here doesn’t need another convenience store or homewares outlet.

Now it’s milk. Personally I can’t stand the stuff. I drink it because it’s good for my bones and because calcium tablets make me feel ill. I pour it into my tea and order it skim in the daily flat white, but don’t wait for me to guzzle a glass. One whiff and I feel queasy. My friend who feeds soy milk to her chubby baby says we shouldn’t drink milk because we are not cows. It’s evil stuff really. I only ever drink small amounts, but I still have a cholesterol problem. And no, it’s not the butter cheese, cakes or biscuits that sends my “big C” rising. I’m a dietary saint. I don’t eat that rubbish (very often).

It’s not enough that I drink milk because apparently I need it. Now I feel guilty about it. Last time I filled up the car, the very pleasant chap behind the counter interrogated me.

“Gum, lollies, chips? What about a drink?” Just as I almost barked “if I wanted to buy junk food, I would, with or without your kind invitation” I spied the chilled section, and contained within it, the bargain of the moment: Milk: two for the price of one.

This is a saving of $4, and it’s rare these days to save that amount on a single food item. I grabbed two. I should have grabbed four, given the number of banana smoothies the beefed up 19-year-old consumes.

I drove home wondering where the golden infused moment went. You know, when you snare a bargain and feel pure joy; a light, floating sensation, as if you’ve won Lotto, not that I ever have. I felt it this morning, birthday shopping with the baby. Whilst she threw chunky scarves around her pretty neck, I grabbed a “three for $10” offer on exotic bubble bath, usually retailing at $24.95 a bottle. Pretty, sweet smelling and always good for presents. Eureka! But whose livelihood have I compromised, pouncing greedily on this fabulous little bargain?

Back to the milk. With the senate inquiry into milk price wars starting this week, I wonder about the rhetoric flying around at the moment. Coles would blame the multinational milk processing companies but isn’t sure that lower milk prices will hurt the dairy industry anyway. For them $1 a litre is a magnanimous gesture, giving best-value milk to customers.

Coles and Woolworths may practice blinkered vision but I cannot imagine how those bargain bottles of milk in my fridge can help our farmers, battling to stay upright in this vicious market economy.

Fortunately Independent senator Nick Xenophon agrees. He initiated the upper house inquiry.

"The risk is that the Australian industry is at the tipping point of having mass walkouts from farms around the country, particularly in North Queensland," he said.

"Coles needs to explain themselves to the Australian people in terms of their conduct and behaviour."

If a bargain is all you care about and bugger the farmers, don’t expect your daily caffeine dose to drop in price any time soon. Baristas aren’t happy about cheap milk which they believe is watered down and decidedly dodgy. Nothing froths better than the expensive stuff.

I have always needed an excuse to support the local grocer. Wasting my valuable time driving to the supermarket mall, guzzling petrol and polluting the air has never felt enough. Now I can happily say I’m supporting the farmers. I am also supporting a local treasure: Sam, father of four, sports lover extraordinaire and keeper of all good things, including his mother’s home made baklava and all the local gossip.

Guilt free shopping. Expensive, but worth it.

On Disaster's Sidelines

As I nursed our dying dog and last Wednesday evening handed over our precious little bundle to the vet, I was aghast at the grief which washed over the family.

A strange other feeling bubbled over me this past week. I found myself avoiding the television and turning off news radio after days of non-stop reporting of a tragedy far more profound. It wasn’t survivor guilt, because I wasn’t there, but the voice in my head nagged: “How can this little family drama surpass Christchurch?” This was just a dog.

I found myself apologising for my blubbering and avoiding people, especially the pet intolerant who I couldn’t expect to understand.

The day after the dog died, I sat on a grubby plastic chair in an inner-city emergency department as a young doctor injected a needle deep into a gaping wound on my daughter’s face. I thought about the doctors over there in the ruins of Christchurch. How trivial this small but sickeningly deep wound seemed.

But hang on, I say to myself, this is my world, and though far away from the earthquake zone, my little dramas remain just that. Relativity isn't the issue here. It's pain, pure and simple and it comes in all shapes and sizes. I gave thanks for small mercies: we loved our little dog and he loved us. He had a happy, peaceful life.

The daughter is sleeping it off and will recover in time to frock up for the next 18th birthday party. She will be mildly annoyed by a fat wad of steristrips hanging off her pretty chin, but she will get over it.

I think about earthquake stricken families with issues far greater than mine and I hope they find peace soon. And I'm recalling an earlier time as a member of a disenchanted posse of social work students who were reminded to “think global but act local”.

In recognition of life’s painful interludes, I’m concentrating on being kind and patient. Yesterday I even smiled at the idiot who almost backed his car into mine. The good news is that he didn't. We waved to each other and drove off. Warm glows all around.

I pick up the weekend paper to reconnect with the world and my warm glow fades. I wonder how the media can justify the exploitation of people in pain, to make sales and reap profits. Do we really need a front page photo of a devastated family just realising the death of a wife and mother?

Isn’t it enough to know some unlucky soul in a crushed building in downtown Christchurch had his legs amputated on site? Apparently not. We need to know specifics: that a pen knife and a local carpenter’s hacksaw were used by a couple of doctors, one of whom was so sickened by the procedure that she remains too traumatised to be hounded by reporters for a comment. We need to know a local cop relentlessly hacked away until the leg came off before the man was whisked away to hospital.

Ugh…but wait a minute. I think I like reading about it! I sip my coffee and go a-hunting for more tales of blood and gore. I thought it was only morons who relished continuous disaster porn on crass commercial TV. At least my head’s stuck in a respectable broadsheet.

What is wrong with me? After all it was me who dragged the hubby to the cinema to watch a film about a self-absorbed loner who hacked off his arm with a cheap and nasty pocket knife after it became lodged under a falling boulder. That’ll teach him to leave the fancy Swiss army version at home. Off the high horse I must jump. I am as pathetic as that loser next to me, munching on a toastie as he swats over the daily rag, absorbed by New Zealand’s gore fest.

It is human nature, that’s what it is. Other people’s misery comforts and relieves us. It puts our little moments of agony into perspective. Perhaps the desperation of strangers may inspire us here on disaster’s sidelines to act benignly and to disperse goodwill towards our fellow human beings. Just for a little while, at least until those haunting images disappear from view.

I’m not sure how looting the debris or impersonating rescue workers fit with this heart-warming testament to humanity’s goodness.

With no little doggie to walk anymore, I’m toddling home to write a cheque for the Red Cross. Nothing more to do.

Published 1st March 2011: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44532.html