Class war on fat people is too much to stomach

Obesity is increasing rapidly in the Western world. In the 1980s, approximately 40% of the UK population were overweight and less than 10% were obese. Now two-thirds of adults are overweight and more than a fifth are obese.

In the monumental book Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett dedicate a fascinating chapter to exploring the causes behind this “obesity epidemic” and conclude that obesity levels tend to be lower in countries where income differences are smaller.

This plague of portliness has caused a major health crisis in the developed world as higher obesity levels has seen the ballooning of those suffering from heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. Increasing numbers of obese children will lead to lower life expectancy and place additional strain on an already underfunded and undervalued NHS. Furthermore, obesity further erodes psychological and mental well-being.

Historically, being fat has been associated with being rich. Rich people didn’t need to engage in manual labour and they could afford to gorge on various decadent delights. Conversely, the poor would work long, strenuous days and could afford, if anything, only the most basic food. Whilst the rich were often fat cats; the poor were more likely to be malnourished and suffer from debilitating disease.

As the Western world has moved to a post-industrial economy, however, obesity has changed its social distribution. For a variety of reasons – as laid out in Spirit Level – working-class people are now far more likely to be overweight than middle-class people.

This phenomena has been coupled with an overt and covert media assault on the corpulent classes. We have seen an explosion of voyeuristic television programmes laughing at a variety of (usually working-class) overweight subjects – Too Fat Too Young, The 34 Stone Teenager, Fat Club, Big Meets Bigger, The Biggest Loser, Can Fat Teens Hunt? – in a grotesque echo of the Victorian freak show. Tabloid newspapers, trashy magazines, the fashion industry and celeb culture fortify the maxim that thin is beautiful and fat is horrible. The ubiquitous media tells us that fat is wrong but, at the same time, the omnipresent advertising industry tells us to devour more and more unwholesome junk. Well you can't have your cake and eat it! Or maybe you can...

As Polly Toynbee notes, “fat is a class issue” – but this pervasive demonisation is much more subtle than overt class war and is compounded by the media’s desire to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. Like an exquisite meal, everything the media regurgitates has to be easily digestible.

A prime example of this is the clever satire of Have I Got News For You relentlessly attacking John Prescott – one of the few working class members of Blair’s government – for being overweight. Prescott was never overtly mocked for being working class, but that was the underlying subtext – especially when scoffing at Prescott’s lack of lingual dexterity. The implicit implication is that politics is no place for people who haven’t had a public school or Oxbridge education. Indeed, the whole media feeding frenzy around fat people is thinly veiled class war and represents another way for the establishment to both profit from and undermine the working-class.

On the campaign trail #1

Campaigning starts early for the May local elections; the Tories and Labour are on local doorsteps every Sunday, and I’m supplementing the Labour cause by posting leaflets in local streets.

I first became aware of the Conservative effort at the beginning of January, when I received a ‘sorry to have missed you’ leaflet through the door. What fun I could have had if I’d been at home... I also ran into a local Conservative candidate on my way back from the train station, targeting London commuters no doubt. The absence of any Conservative leaflets could reflect the fact that they’d prefer to actually speak to people to try and frame their policies as benefitting the poor and poor areas. What would the Conservative leaflet contain? News on NHS reform, savage cuts on jobs and local budgets, affecting everything from housing to schools to libraries? When I receive something from them, I’ll let you know.

My local Labour party are also using traditional means of getting the word out about Conservative plans to cut budgets and increase housing rents. I live in an area that is traditionally Labour, but somehow we’ve ended up with a Tory MP. So the leaflets are being distributed as often and as widely as possible. In local campaigning, there are four basic ways to help:

1) Stuff envelopes with locally produced letters
2) Deliver the envelopes, or deliver leaflets
3) Telephone members and non-members for support
4) Go door-knocking with local councillors

As an active member, I’m ripe for telephoning members and delivering envelopes. I’ve previously blogged about my good experience telephoning members, and I thought delivering envelopes would be easy too so signed up to do some deliveries last week.

It turned out a lonely task, and my first attempt to deliver failed. I walked out with my Tesco bag of leaflets, and returned with then 20 minutes later. It is daunting if you haven’t done it before, especially if you’re on your own. My main concerns were getting flak from the houses I was posting to, and silly as it sounds, getting chased or bitten by dogs. After the first failed attempt during the day, I thought it would be better to deliver under the cover of darkness. A few hours later, I set out again with my plastic bag, and soon got into my stride. In fact, I was secretly hoping to get asked about the leaflets! It wasn’t a particularly fulfilling experience, more relief when I’d finished. In all honesty, I feel I may be ready for the more social and effective option of campaigning: door-knocking.

Have you been campaigning for a political party? Are you actively campaigning for the May elections too? What is your experience door-knocking? I’d be interested to know your thoughts to see if it’s right for me.

The UN, ‘big society’ and UK forests

2011 has been proclaimed international year of forests by the UN, with its tagline ‘celebrating forests for people’. Did you know forests are home to 300 million people around the world, and the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people depend on forests?

Whilst there’s a distinct global feel to the UN’s message, we must keep an eye on our own woodland and public spaces to ensure they are kept public, and out of the hands of the private sector, which will inevitably lead to their destruction.

In October last year, it was widely reported that the Government confirmed plans to sell off Forestry Commission woodland. The move showed that even inanimate trees cannot be saved from the Government’s idea for a ‘big society’, where there will be a reduced role for the state and a growing role for the private sector.

Despite Government insistence that privatisation would not mean a compromise on conservation, many people are sceptical, in the way they were 20 years ago when the previous Tory government proposed something similar. Last week, words turned into action when more than 3,000 people protested at the Forest of Dean against the proposed sale of the Forestry Commission.

The bill to decide the future of Forestry Commission land (all 650,000 hectares of it) will be debated in Parliament within the next few weeks. If turned into law, land including the New Forest and Sherwood Forest may be sold to the highest bidder, who protesters fear will be energy companies and developers, looking to limit public access and make a quick buck.

Watch this (green) space...