The curious case of the criminally corpulent chimp
HAVE you heard of a wild monkey so impossibly fat that it has been described by veterinarians as “morbidly obese”?
There but for the grace of gymnasiums go we. According to Bangkok’s Associated Press bureau, said ape became overweight owing to a steady diet of junk food and soda left him by kindly tourists thinking the poor fellow was looking starved. It has since been caught and, much to its chagrin, placed on a strict diet of lean protein, fruits, nuts and vegetables.
The mammoth mammal had been looking forward to a rosy, if gluttonous, future of hypertension, diabetes and coronary heart disease but, alas, that was not to be.
It was his general attitude as he was a philosophical beast. “I am not afraid of dying fat”, he often remarked to his admirers and there were a great many. “Let my pallbearers worry.”
Wildlife officials caught the chunky monkey-turned-junkie – nicknamed “Uncle Fat” by Thai locals – after photos of the ample animal started circulating on social media last month.
(Note to readers unfamiliar with Thai custom: OK, they aren’t renowned for originality in nick- names but one can be sure that if a monkey had turned up in hat and wand, it would be nicknamed Hairy Potter).
I digress, however, so I shall get back to the thrilling tale of the furry fatso. Most of the monkeys roaming free in Thailand are macaques like Uncle F, and they typically weigh in at around 9 kg (20 pounds). The improbably inflated Uncle F, however, tipped the scales at over 60 pounds and, at last count, had more chins than Chinatown. Even his shadow weighed two pounds.
It wasn’t hard to understand why as it was easy to distract a fat ape: in fact, it was a piece of cake. But the ample ape steadfastly denied that it was overweight, it was merely under-tall. And it should have been a foot taller.
The criminally corpulent Uncle F was the leader of a mob of marauding macaques that regularly chilled out at Thai tourist hotspots which only proved that they may have been plump but they weren’t stupid.
While Uncle F was the leader of the mob, his able second in command was the brother of his mother which would correctly identify said s-i-c as the fat “monkey’s uncle”. As they say in genealogy, it was a gibbon. Fatso also had a plump son known to all locals as the Chimp off the old block.
Instructed by able s-i-c and abetted by hefty heir, the subordinate monkeys fed into Uncle F’s bad habits.
“He had minions and other mon- keys bringing food for him but he would also re-distribute it to younger monkeys,” said Supakarn Kaewchot, a veterinarian in charge of the monkey’s diet. Uncle F, who believed devoutly in Karl Marx, was a socialist at heart.
Uncle Fat is believed to be between 10 and 15 years old. To help him lose weight, his new diet is limited to 400 grammes worth of lean protein, fruits and vegetables twice a day. He will undoubtedly lose weight but is expected to healthily perish from sheer misery.
Is there a moral to this story? Of course. There are actually two perfectly good ones. One is to avoid fruit and nuts; you are what you eat.
And two, forget this dieting business. It’s just wishful shrinking.