…however that also means it’s more powerful. This applies to any term that means “you are so [adjective] you will die” of course. Although come to think of it I can’t think of any more. Quite why ‘morbidly thirsty’ hasn’t been applied to alcoholics is a mystery. Certainly there’s a practical use for ‘morbidly sexy’. Perhaps for the frequently molested.
Anyway.
It is difficult when you are confronted with labels such as these, but they are accurate and those doing the labelling are frequently doing it for our own good. No self respecting GP says “you are morbidly obese, don’t forget your complimentary cake on the way out” (a bun with ‘big is beautiful’ iced on the top), but should it not be the case that if I want a pork pie for breakfast I can just have the bloody pie? Well, no as it happens. Not if unnecessarily buff Julian Sands look-alike Dr Christian gets his hands on your Supersize self. And let’s face it, you’re not going to outrun him.
The concept of ‘Supersize Vs Superskinny’ is both simple and, ultimately, disappointing. This is not a hilariously mis-matched wrestling bout. Instead we have a fat person of around 25 stone (a very round 25 stone). We also have a disturbingly skinny person, generally of around 6-8 stone. They swap diets for a week and learn the lesson that one needs to eat more and the other needs to eat less. I have not seen many episodes, but I’ve yet to see one where the lesson is learned the wrong way around. I live in hope.
There was a time when ‘Supersize Vs Superskinny’ was not very confrontational. We just saw the people sit down and start eating each other’s menu. This was after we’d been introduced to them. After the requisite footage had been shown of the supersize wheezing about; eating and generally being wobbly, followed by shots of the superskinny wafting around like a twiglet in pants. But, possibly due to the feeble, withered influence of food witch Gillian Mckeith, the programme now begins with the ‘food tubes’. This is the moment when the players are shamed into admitting that their diet is not very good. Mckeith did it by covering a table in a mountain of chips and cake. This wasn’t very effective as the subjects of her programme would just stare it with their stomachs rumbling, only snapping out of their carbohydrate-induced hypnosis when chip city was cleared into a hundred black sacks and driven away to chip doom. Gillian Mckeith was essentially a wizened vegetable Hitler gleefully masterminding a fried-food holocaust.
Time’s marched on and now we are confronted with the food tubes. This, amazingly, is a set of two large tubes into which food is deposited. It is clearly designed to disgust all concerned so that ways are changed.Whereas Mckeith showed a table of nicely cooked greasegasms and relied upon the quantity to shame the subjects, now we have the image of curry; fries and pasties being farted out of a black gutter to plop sadly into a murky lagoon of coffee and burgers. It’s all deeply grim and the episode I saw recently was no exception. It’s a shame because the supersize fellow, Stu, was very cheerful when he arrived. Unnecessarily buff Dr Christian soon saw off the smiles of course, liberally sprinkling his conversation with references to death like he was applying croutons to soup. Or perhaps a stu. As Stu’s food tube was filling up Christian looked up at him with sympathetic eyes. “Do you have chips with everything?” he says, rhetorically.
“Yes,” said Stu “with cheese”.
Alice, the superskinny’s tube was predictably less full than Stu’s, consisting as it did of coffee and a tomato.
It was quite nice to see the two of them together, Stu beaming down at her like a tyrannosaur eyeing up a gecko. “How much do you weigh?” he asked, and was clearly shocked when she said how much (7stone). Not just because he knows he weighs a lot more than her, but also because he knows that her size is just as wrong as his. Sitting down to their first meal together, Stu declares “I don’t expect you to eat all of that”. Stu weighs three and a half Alices apparently. Which coincidentally is what he was hoping to have for breakfast. Instead he gets a thimble of porridge. By Alice’s third meal of the day (coincidentally, her second visit to McDonald’s of the day), she unsurprisingly complains of not being hungry. Stu is close to tears at this point, desperate to lick the air around the burgers. The narrator informs us that Stu’s diet contains too much salt.
We are left to digest this bombshell whilst we check in on a group of recovering anorexics. It’s sad seeing the anorexic people. They have survived for years it seems by drinking a cup of coffee every few days and prodding their protruding bones complaining about being fat. It’s tragic and therefore heart warming when you see this group getting better. This week they were looking at photos of each other before they (euphemistically) “became ill”. They all coo over the beauty that the subjects never saw. I imagine they’re thinking “fat fuck”, but we have cut back to the matter in hand before the thought is verbalised and a very slow fight takes place.
Back at the feeding clinic, Alice observes “these portions are huge”. She can barely see Stu over the top of her snack (tower) of cheesy crumpets with cheese and beans and cheese. Stu didn’t really say anything to this. Perhaps he realizes that it’s a moot point. Perhaps he thinks that in the absence of all other protein his body has started to digest his brain, and that’s why the crumpets are talking to him. By dinnertime she is fighting her way though two muffins and four sausages, snugly parked beneath a melting igloo of cheese. Stu gets a yoghurt, which is less than he had hoped but on the plus side the pot never empties since his tears keep topping it up.
It pays to be a supersize on this programme, because whilst Alice stays at the clinic and eats two portions of cheese with some cheese on top, served on a bed of cheese with a cheese garnish, and unnecessarily buff Dr Christian shows her pictures of people with rickets, Stu is off to America. Hooray for Stu! “I love Universal Studios” he must be thinking. “And the Mouse. And Shamu!”. Sadly it’s just a trip to meet a fat bloke who lives on a broken bed in a foil tray filled flat. “Fuck”, thinks Stu.
“Don’t end up like me,” says Tony, the fat bloke who lives on a broken bed in a foil tray filled flat. “jump off the elevator as there’s only one place it’s going”. This question is left hanging in the air as the camera closes in on Stu’s face. The penny has dropped for Stu. He has been confronted by his own mortality. He is clearly a little distressed. After all, how is he supposed to jump anywhere weighing 25 stone? He hasn’t jumped since House of Pain was in the charts.
Back in the UK Alice and Stu shake hands and go home to eat more healthily and do some exercise. It turns out that’s how you look after yourself. Who’d have thought it? A few weeks later they meet up with the good (but unnecessarily buff) doctor. He weighs them and wouldn’t you know it, she’s lost weight (hooray!) and he has lost weight (jump around!). It’s all very positive and we are left with a feeling of cheerful optimism. Stu is clearly not finding the change of lifestyle as easy as Alice though. For a start he mentions cheese 45 times. He may never be thin, but he will remain with us for longer than he would have done without that yoghurt. And that can only be a good thing.
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