It's odd, isn't it, how it's somehow ok to be rude about fat people. Thin people are "slim", but fat people are, well, fat. And on the whole, not well tolerated.
I have nursed some enormously fat people in my time. I know what they look like under all those clothes, and believe me, it's not a pretty sight. Having said that, I think that obese adults have made a choice, and while it's fine - good, in fact - for health professionals to advise them, you can't MAKE people change their eating habits (I've tried!). As for the medical costs they may incur for the cash-strapped NHS, they will probably die at a younger age and save on care at the end of their lives, so in the end it will more or less equal out.
What I do have a problem with is obese children. I have just seen - in a supermarket - two obese women shopping with an obese child. The girl was about 12. They were carrying - among other things - boxes of chocolate cakes and crumpets, and I had to restrain myself from going over and telling them to put them all back; that they were abusing that child. Because they are. It's like making babies smoke. Adults can smoke if they choose, but you wouldn't do it to a child, and the same applies to food. I know - for a fact - that this girl will go on to be an obese adult, with all the attendant problems. She's probably already being teased at school, and I ache for her.
I don't have the answers. I certainly don't think that obese children should be taken into care (as has recently happened). But I do feel sad that this is going on, and that there seems to be so little anyone can do to stop it.
