(no subject)

[kerriesakura]

I was walking through the station this morning - that's walking, this will become important in a minute - and stopped at their newsagent to look at the newspaper headlines, as I do most mornings. Usually they do give me cause to mutter to myself and walk off, especially the tabloids, but this morning they actually made me angry. Well, The Sun did. Now being angry at The Sun is hardly new for someone in the UK who writes on livejournal, but this edition was actually ridiculous.

Without paraphrasing, altering or exaggerating, the headline was: "Fatties cause global warming."

I was already aware that being fat makes me a bad person, and a lazy greedy slob, and a drain on NHS resources, but now me and my "kind" are responsible for this catastrophe too? Jesus. No wonder we're all miserable. Better go and eat an entire cake to make myself feel better.

I'm so angry about this that I don't even know where to begin. Most of the people reading this will see right away how ridiculous it is, and that The Sun's just a peddler of smut and lies and gossip, but what angers me most is perhaps that there'll be no outcry over this. Nothing will happen. If this headline was about any other group of people, there'd be mass rage and rightly so. If the headline found a way to blame Christians or gay people or the Polish for something, it wouldn't be just me sitting here ranting to ten people on a keyboard.

Fat people, though, are fair game. You're still allowed to laugh at us. The Sun can no longer get away with going LOL GAYS so they go LOL LARDARSE instead. I've been made fun of, belittled, rejected, overlooked, all my life for being a fat girl, and I know it's far from just me. And yes, I KNOW it will cause me health problems. I'm not a fucking moron. If you must know my blood pressure has always been perfect except for the time medication made it skyrocket, my cholesterol is fine, and I do not thus far suffer from asthma. Oh, and I only eat takeaway about once a month, so shove it up your arse, Sun.

jennywooyay has just informed me The Sun article is based on a press release from a university website for an article that isn't even published yet. Something you MIGHT mention in tiny writing on page 18 or whatever. Not put on your front page in massive (arf!) great letters.

But everyone wants you to be thin! Look at this business, for example. For the love of all that is good in this world, do not take this tablet. Do not let anyone else you know take this tablet. It will make you horribly, disgustingly sick. It will mess with the absorption of the good stuff from your food. It gives you a weight loss "boost" that you cannot hope to replicate when you stop taking them, and you'll regain the weight and more. I've taken them, I know. I've tried all the slimming tablets. They made me miserable, ill, depressed, weak, and generally batshit.

I am a media junkie. Yet the media makes me sick. Again, this is hardly new, but this body fascism that people say is nowhere near as bad these days? Uh huh, dream on. A newspaper last week described Susan Boyle (and there's a rant all on its own) as "the hairy angel". What the... oh, I see pretty voice, shame she's a MINGER, eh? Let's all point and laugh at her, ahahahahaha! Well done, British newspapers. Well done.

What can you do about it though, other than rant ineffectually on the interweb? Nothing. Nothing at all. That's the part that angers me most.

Comments

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

I saw that headline while I was - also! - walking to get the tv listings mag. And there will be no outcry. And it's horrible to feel like that when all you're doing is fetching a magazine from your local post office. Not only can we be ridiculed, or patronized when we - shock horror! - have some kind of skill that is apparently reserved for slim people, but now we're 'responsible' for global warming. Uhuh. What. Was feeling insecure and rubbish yesterday, and when I heard about those new diet pills I'm ashamed to say I was tempted. I just want to say thank you for writing what you did and reminding me why I must never do that to myself. -hugs- I'm quite vulnerable right now, and I think I would have done it, had I not seen what you said. Thank you, again.

[speednik.livejournal.com]

People with really beautiful hair use more hair care products than everyone else and are therefore polluting our oceans.

I've had a peek at the article now and I see what they're getting at, particularly in their assertion that people (not necessarily overweight people but certainly the less mobile) might drive short distances that could be easily traversed on foot (probably to buy pies! etc) but that headline doesn't help anyone except to aid comprehension of the story in somebody with a very basic reading level.

Make of that what you will.

In fact, in food production terms, meat and other animal products are the biggest contributors to this CO2 production problem but I don't foresee the headline:

CARNIVORES WILL DOOM US ALL
"Morrissey Correct to be Offended"

Brilliantly, the whole thing end with this, which makes the use of the headline seem even more ill-informed:

Sun doctor Carol Cooper said last night: “I’m not sure which came first, people getting fat and driving or the other way around. It is true fat people eat more food than average.

“A few obese people have a hormone problem, although most simply don’t use enough calories and eat too many. But making them feel guilty antagonises them and may not help.”

Also, the online article has a picture of a fat bloke with a wedding ring on, taken from behind. I had to scroll up again to make sure it wasn't me.

[tiffuchan.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with and fully endorse this post.