Getting fat is easy. But so is judging them

It’s still January, we’re all still on a health kick (or ashamed of having fallen off the wagon) so I think we need to talk about fat-shaming.

Obese boy. Picture: iStock

Actually, I need a talking-to about fat-shaming. The thing is, because I struggle to keep the kilos off, I presumed myself empathetic, neutral even, when it came to other people’s weight.

Then I had dinner at a friend’s with a group of people, and I noticed that one chap across the table – the largest guest – ate three servings, bless his hungry heart. Oooh, three dinners, I noted in that deep, dark place we all have inside; just look at Johnny Three Dinners!

Later I mentioned it to my son, who’d also been present. Did you see Johnny Three Dinners, I said, or something like it: three dinners – imagine! It’s very worrying…

Well, grinned my lanky 21-year-old, in fairness he himself had enjoyed three dinners, too. I was blindsided.

After all, my son had been sitting right next to me. I’d surely seen his plate refilled three times, but had not registered it, because I wasn’t weighing him mentally.

With skinny people, I eat and let eat. But don’t we all do the same?

We swap knowing looks when a large person orders fries or dares to eat chocolate in public. We covertly analyse their plates at dinner parties, even though they might have starved themselves in order to fit into those trousers, to enjoy this special meal.

We assume that being overweight is simply the result of gluttony, of a lack of control, of having no food filters. We expect chunky folks to somehow resist all deliciousness.

We never, ever, give them a day off from the lifetime business of corralling their girth.

I know, because I beat myself up regularly about my own ballast, too. But then I read something that blew apart my lazy assumptions. It’s the tale of four olives.

If a person, any person, were to eat a mere 20 calories more than their energy requirement per day – the equivalent of four olives – over the course of 20 years, they would gain a whopping 20kg.

So this, then, is my apology to all the struggling Johnny Three Dinners, and the Johnny Four Olives too, because often they’re the same person.

And who could ever stop at just four olives anyway?