Eat Some More

Feeling good about yourself? No, didn't think so. Why would you? You probably think you're fat, or have a wonky face, or something else that is likely not to be true. This doesn't stop you thinking it though does it, and that is your right. Your priviledge. We are the free, and we celebrate our freedom with self-loathing. Hooray for how awful we think we are.

Channel 4 knows this, and strives to show us how much worse we could look. One example of this is 'Supersize Vs Super Skinny'. In this series, unsurprisingly, we compare the eating habits of a very fat person and a very thin person. Perish the thought that it's for the freak show value, that would be cruel, we are only comparing them to show that the fat one doesn't have to have their portions airlifted into their garden, and the thin one can...well...eat. It's presented by two people, one the kind of faceless presenter who may have done a property programme, been a Loose Woman, read the news, anything really, but as she has no discernable features it's hard to say. The other is Julian Sands lookalike Dr Christian Jessen, whom you may recognise from Channel 4's 'Embarassing Bodies' in which he reassures people with anal warts (or as I once heard them referred, 'speed bumps') that they just need some ointment and a bit of patience. He has a face (albeit someone elses) so we can listen to what he says without wondering if he was hatched from his pod prematurely.

In the most recent episode we compare a 'put the fork down' 27 stone DJ called Keith, and a 'risks blowing away' 6 stone poppet by the name of Tiffany (I should point out that for reasons best known to themselves, the Channel 4 website has increased her weight to 7 stone and his to 30). Keith is the kind of fat man that the word 'jolly' was invented for. He has legs like prehistoric oaks and forearms that look like they ought to be carved, crammed into a pitta and fed to drunks beneath chilli sauce, but has yet to suffer the inevitable leg-ulcers, heart disease, diabetes and eventual harpooning that comes as part of travelling the road more wobblesome. Instead he cheerily accepts that he needs to change, punctuating every sentence with hohos worthy of Father Christmas and wobbling his belly like a bowl full of jelly. His main problem seems to be that he works odd hours as a DJ, and is therefore forced to eat large quantities of fish and chips at 4am. I'm not entirely sure of his logic here, but he chuckled so it must be solid. Tiffany's problem is that she feels she is too busy to eat so only eats a couple of spoons of cornflakes then spends the rest of the day guzzling Red Bull. She is roughly the same height as Nick Nack so only needs to gain a stone or two in order to be a healthy weight. Keith on the other hand needs to literally halve himself, then keep going for two more stone.

The programme rolls toward a predictable conclusion, ending up with weight-loss/gain followed by happiness and cuddles. The fun aspect is in the 'versus' sections, where the featured supers swap eating habits. Keith stares despondantly at the two spoons of Shepherds Pie he has for his dinner, whilst Tiffany is dwarfed by a mound of chicken chow mein so tall it ought to have snow at its peak. My favourite moment was Keith openly salivating when he tells her, "scoop some on the prawn cracker...yeah...and have some sauce too...isn't that good? Ooh yes". He couldn't have been more obviously aroused if he had dropped his trousers, heaved up his stomach and masturbated onto the tablecloth.
"How long would it take you to eat all this?" tweets Tiffany,
"Er...a portion that size about five or six minutes" chortles Keith apologetically.

Concerned that the change of diet may not be enough to make Keith take himself in hand, Dr Sands takes him to watch a stomach-stapling operation. This seems to have the desired effect as, noticeabley upset by the drastic nature of the surgery, Keith resolves to make the life change. Not for himself, but for his six year-old daughter.
"My daughter is the light of my life" he says. At which point we cut to...no, not his daughter as you may think logical, we actually cut to earlier footage of Keith in a chip shop troweling deep-fried spud into his chops like he has a gun to his head. An unusual choice of edit, to be sure.

Now I love a freak show, but has my enthusiasm for pointing made these programme-makers lackadaisical? It seems impossible for modern documentaries to treat the subject of fat folk in a serious manner for longer than two minutes without reverting to stock footage of them waddling into a cafe and wheezily ordering two fried breakfasts as they tentatively lower themselves onto a double seat, or taking an hour to pick a pencil from the floor with their sausage fingers. An even lazier technique is the soundtrack. You could be forgiven for thinking that as soon as you reach 18 stone a small brass band appears on your doorstep and informs you that they will be following you, providing a soundtrack to your daily life until you lose weight. You feel obliged to invite them in and offer them a cup of tea, sighing as the tuba smugly parps your every footstep.

A bit like how Chris Martin follows you around incessantly warbling his wrist-cutting hit 'Yellow' if you suffer from depression and have private medical insurance.