Take it from me, being fat’s no fun
So why is it now taboo to say so?
Has Jamelia really now been axed from the Loose Women panel following her remarks about plussize females? If so, that is an outrage because she was only speaking the truth. On an edition of the ITV lunchtime talk show broadcast in april last year, the singer opined that obese women ‘should feel uncomfortable’ about their unhealthy size.
she added that High street stores should not — and I am paraphrasing here — be lavishly catering for this elasticated waist-seeking blobocracy by making their exceptional sizes seem the norm.
supplying the demand for a vast range of vast-sized clothes was only compounding the problem.
singer Jamelia was talking about plus-plus sizes from 22 and beyond, the twilight word of smocks and sacks and waterfall cardigans, of frocks shaped like bricks and shirtwaist dresses without waists — and I know what she means because I’ve been there and got the XXXL-size T-shirt to prove it.
Her ITV bosses were furious. Perhaps because they secretly suspect a large percentage of the Loose Women audience are dozy fat chicks prostrate on the sofa in the middle of the day, watching telly and guzzling cream buns, while disagreeing with Gloria Hunniford or Coleen Nolan’s latest pronouncements. and perhaps they do the show’s fans a great disservice.
BuT 35-year- old Jamelia has really hit on something. We should be concerned with the way unhealthy weight problems have been unquestioningly embraced by the High street and elsewhere — on both ends of the size divide.
You might think a fatso like me would be angry with her for what could be seen as ‘ body shaming’ a chunky sector of the population, but I completely understand her point.
Just like Jamelia, I have also become increasingly uncomfortable with the creeping celebration of fatness — especially among the young. Many of us struggle with our weight, and losing it gets harder as you get older, but I’m not making excuses for myself or anyone else.
What I am saying is that I think it is wrong to encourage young women in particular to believe it is OK — and, occasionally, even glamorous — to be overweight.
Of course, so-called fat shaming — vilifying someone for their extra pounds — is despicable, the last stand of the bully who has got one over on you at last.
However, I worry that society has swung too far the other way, fostering the notion that it is fine to be overweight and you are lovely just the way you are.
Well, maybe you really are, but let’s be honest here. You’d look even better if you lost the saddle bags, the ‘mermaid thighs’ (the flattering new term for chunky upper legs) and the Prosecco jelly belly.
But, increasingly, this is not said, or even whispered, for fear of being seen as judgmental, or hurting the feelings of loved ones or of being, God forbid, politically incorrect.
added to this are endless campaigns to celebrate real women and the kind of feminist empowerment rhetoric that decrees you are beautiful whatever your shape. There are inspiring polemics encouraging us to exult in our curves and be body positive, to climb into those sequins, girlfriend, and go for it.
Well, I agree with all of that — up to a point.
One of the difficult areas is the rise of the plus- size blogger, the young women who have an increasingly powerful presence online and in the fashion world. These fierce fashionistas are all over Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere, their words and images increasingly co- opted into the advertising profiles of plussize High street brands.
They send out a potent message that big is beautiful, big is just fine. They are usually under 30, with ravishingly lovely faces, a flawless fashion sense and a photogenic lifestyle. The other thing they have in common is that they are seriously overweight and rather gloriously unrepentant about it.
Their curves are not Photoshopped, their appetite for life displayed for all to see in their snaps of holidays, fullfat lunches and endless, endless fashion buys.
Their mantra is that you don’t need to be a sample size to make a style statement, which is entirely true and even laudable — but you don’t need to be four times a sample size, either.
Their blogs and websites are often larded with inspirational quotes, such as this one: ‘It’s not cellulite, it’s my body’s way of saying “I’m sexy” in Braille.’
Which is funny, but also delusional. When you are 22 and gorgeous and posing in the California sunshine, you can just about get away with being fat.
The reality is that, elsewhere, it is problematic and far from attractive.
Being overweight is not a passport to a glamorous paradise, it is a barrier to life. and it cannot be denied that you might be storing up health problems for the future.
Fat shamers don’t even want you to have healthcare for weight-related issues, although I don’t agree with that argument.
Fat people pay their taxes and are just as entitled to medical attention as worriers, workaholics, smokers, drinkers, motorcycle riders, skiers, anorexics, cheese-aholics, women who keep getting pregnant, former drugsters who irrevocably weakened their hearts and livers in their misspent youths and a million others.
Yet we should heed Jamelia’s warning. Don’t let being overweight be the new normal. Don’t forget that High street stores are now selling plus sizes not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because the population is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Fat apologists will tell you that it is not about the size you wear, but the way your wear your size. That might be true.
But I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin (and fat again and thin again) and this much I know. Thin is better.