I READ some truly shocking news in The Sun this week.
No, it wasn’t the Beckhams pulling out the world’s smallest narcissistic violins to play the victim for their new self- promoting Netflix documentary.
(Spoiler alert: I fear I’m one of the people Victoria apparently ‘still wants to kill’ for being so beastly to poor David when he cost us the 1998 World Cup by getting sent off for a dumb act of petulance.)
No, it was the bombshell revelation that you can’t be fat AND fit.
Well knock me down with a burger-scented feather!
I wasn’t remotely surprised to see something confirmed that I’ve been telling everyone for years.
But it was encouraging to discover there is now incontrovertible proof that being obese isn’t healthy, it’s likely to cause your early death.
German medical researchers examined whether the increasingly popular new concept of metabolically healthy obesity is correct.
And the firm answer is no, of course it bloody isn’t . . .
The notion that you can be fat and fit, or obese and healthy, is a myth, a stupid, nonsensical, completely invented idea aggressively and self-servingly promoted by plus-size celebrities such as rapper Lizzo, supermodel Ashley Graham, and so-called “Body Positive” influencers like Tess Holliday.
The in-depth study revealed that not only do fat people have a significantly increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, but even those who are obese but seem otherwise healthy are 50 per cent more susceptible to heart disease.
And what’s the best way to improve your health if you’re fat?
Lose weight.
Yes, the researchers concluded that shedding fatty timber is the single most effective way to avoid the health problems that come with obesity.
On one level, this is almost ludicrously obvious, a bit like saying drinking less alcohol will be good for your liver.
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But the reason this survey is so important is because the whole “Body Positivity” movement has become one of the single most dangerous threats to health in the world.
It’s replaced the shameful and equally dangerous “heroin chic” craze that encouraged young women to look bone-protrudingly emaciated.
And it’s being fuelled by famous women who have a vested commercial interest in gullible people believing their bulls**t, and by cynical magazine editors who stick them on their covers pretending they’re inspirational.
Several years ago, this potentially lethal conspiracy reached its nadir when Cosmopolitan magazine in the UK put Tess Holliday on its cover.
She was wearing a green swimsuit and blowing a kiss, under the headline: “A SUPERMODEL ROARS! TESS HOLLIDAY WANTS THE HATERS TO KISS HER ASS.”
That would take a lot of kissing, given that Holliday is just 5ft 3in but weighs more than 21st.
As such, she’s not just obese, she’s suffering from morbid obesity.
‘What delusional poppycock’
That’s not me being a “fat-shaming d***head” as the Body Positive mob always instantly scream at anyone who dares challenge them with cold hard truths. It’s a scientific fact. The medical establishment gives that definition to anyone who is more than 100lbs (7st) overweight or has a Body Mass Index — the ratio of an individual’s height to his or her weight — of 40 or more.
Morbid obesity, as its name suggests, is a very serious, and in most cases deadly, health condition.
Those diagnosed with it are at greater risk for illnesses including diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones, osteoarthritis, heart disease and cancer.
In other words, it will kill you.
Yet Cosmo inexplicably and recklessly sat Tess Holliday on a throne and declared she was “a role model for others who’ve been excluded this way”, “downright honest” and “everything the fashion industry needs right now” because she “don’t conform to the narrow standard of beauty that’s been set by society”.
What delusional poppycock!
In the accompanying interview, Holliday insisted: “I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life now and it took me being the heaviest to finally love myself.”
Sadly, she was lying — to us, and to herself.
Nobody, male or female, could see their weight surge to over 21st if they’re just 5ft 3in tall and suddenly love themselves.
But I can see how easy it is for people like Tess Holliday to become trapped in such a hellish spiral of self-delusion when their soaring fame and fortune is entirely dependent on remaining morbidly obese.
When a furore erupted over her Cosmo cover, Holliday posted a semi-naked Instagram photo of herself to her 1.7million followers, with the caption: “Damn . . . that look good.”
It was her friend Lizzo who told her to do it.
The same Lizzo who spews similar claptrap, claiming: “I know I’m fat. It doesn’t bother me. I like being fat, and I’m beautiful and I’m healthy. So can we move on?”
Not so fast, young lady; you’re now a massive star with a huge young female fan base who hang on your every word, and it’s simply not true to say you’re “healthy”.
‘Insane woke-ravaged world’
All this comes at a time when Britain is getting fatter and fatter, with 28 per cent of us now obese compared to just ONE PER CENT in 1950.
More than 60 per cent of us are overweight and that number is expected to rise to a staggering 80 per cent by 2060.
We have the third highest obesity rate in Europe.
But due to the insane woke-ravaged world we have to endure these days, calling someone “fat” is now virtually a hate crime.
Instead, we are constantly being urged to celebrate obesity like it’s some kind of trophy we should all aspire to win, when in reality, it’s a fast-track to an early grave.
And before the Body Positivity mob start screaming “what about you, Fatso?” at me, let me state for the record that I’m no body perfect myself.
I’m 6ft 1in and weigh around 15st 5lb.
My doctor says I’m reasonably fit for a man of 58, but he’d like to see me get under 14st 4lb — and so would I.
That’s why I work out in a gym or do a Peloton bike session three times week and watch what I eat and drink.
Unlike Tess Holliday and Lizzo, when I see a chubby-looking photo of myself, I don’t cheer and pop champagne corks, I cringe and put the corks back in their bottles.
Losing weight isn’t easy.
But if you’re obese, it’s essential, and the first step is brutal honesty.
Celebrities who trade off their obesity need to stop conning themselves and the public and, for their own sakes, get genuinely fit and healthy by losing weight.
Now THAT would be what I call a Body Positive campaign.