“In order to prepare this speech [for his
funeral], I rang a few people to get a general picture of how Gareth was
regarded by those who met him: Fat seems to have been a word most people
connected with him.”
From 1994 film, “Four Weddings and a
Funeral”
How did Britain get so fat?
When I was going to school in the
mid-1990s, there weren’t many fat kids around.
We had an image of America as a land of fat people, not the UK. A popular film of the time was, “Four
Weddings and a Funeral”. The British
characters were slim and witty, and they poked fun at the one fat character,
who had an early funeral. But since the
1990s, rates of obesity have almost doubled in the UK. 27 per cent of British people are now
classified as obese. This compares to
just 4 per cent of Japanese people. 63
per cent of Britons are classified as overweight. We are now the fattest country in Western
Europe.
Japanese people are quick to say, “You
should lose weight.” People are much
slower to say that in the UK. I met my
Japanese wife when she was living in Britain.
When I introduced her to my parents, my mum said that she was very thin
and encouraged her to eat more. But as
soon as my wife went back to Japan, her friends said, “My God, you’re so
fat!” And I’m glad that they did, since
she went on a diet! Living in Britain on
a diet of late-night kebabs, pints of beer and Cadbury’s chocolate bars from
vending machines is not good for your weight, or long-term health.
Maybe Britons are fattening themselves up
in preparation for The Apocalypse. Every
day the news is full of gloomy predictions about how much poorer we will be
after Brexit, or stories of Russian spies running around poisoning people, or
the worsening effects of global warming.
Perhaps people are building up their stores of fat in case the food
supply runs out. In that case, we need
some more positivity. Sit down and
relax. Society is not going to collapse
any time soon. Have a carrot.
Vocabulary:
obesity – Excessive fatness – According to
British official statistics, people are obese if their body mass index is over
30
overweight – fat - According to official
British statistics, people are overweight if their body mass index is over 25
to fatten (something) up – Usually of
animals, to deliberately overfeed in order to make something fatter
The Apocalypse – A worldwide disaster
triggering the end of the world
gloomy – dark; depressing
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