Fatuosity

Hi all,

Well, everyone else has a blog, so I decided that I should have one too. This is partially to encourage me to write - something that I don't do nearly enough - and partially to force my friends to read my rantings when I can't rant at them directly (for an earful, please call 1-800-crankyrant).

At the moment, I don't really know what type of thing will pop up on here. I think I'll try to tackle the big, controversial issues, because that will be a good way of encouraging people to read and comment on my writing. This may have its dangers, but I am famous for living a caution-free life.


I've just returned from the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. Adelaide, for those who haven't been there, is a city around the same size as Boston, but there the resemblance ends. It is alarmingly quiet, especially in the morning, like a 19th-Century Canberra with fewer public servants.

Anyhow, the most interesting talk that I went to was on the ethics of eating. Marion Nestle's talk, entitled 'What to Eat: Personal Responsibility vs. Social Responsibility', prompted a huge volume of responses - most of which took place during her speech.


Nestle (it's pronounced like the word, not the brand of chocolate) focused on the dire threat that junk food advertising poses to our health system. Fair enough, too: flogging choc-marshmallow breakfast cereal in the 8am cartoon TV slot is more than a little cynical. But Nestle's theme struck a massive stomping AC/DC-inspired power chord with the audience.

Nestle sought to blame the media for the obesity 'epidemic' (surely a slightly alarmist label?), thus removing it from individual families and shifting it onto corporations and government. While this social approach is warranted, as it's less aggressively personal than blaming parents for their children's eating habits, I couldn't help feeling that this social constructivist approach wasn't quite what the psyched-up crowd was looking for.

Whenever Nestle made a point linking obesity to individual behaviour, the crowd leapt on it like cheetahs stripping an antelope carcass. It's easy to see why: fill a hall with people who obviously pay minute attention to diet & exercise micromanagement, offer a convenient figure of evil (ostensibly the corporations, but essentially the chubby), and watch the fur fly.

At one point, Nestle made the point that McDonald's (aka the Antichrist) sold junk food in - gasp! - hospitals! To sick children! One might as well hire Ronald and the Grimace to suffocate the poor tykes with pillows and carve ashtrays out of their bones! After she said this (well, not the last point), a strange noise welled up in the hall. It sounded like the nocturnal clicking of frogs, but was in fact many skinny people saying 'tut tut tut' in unison, shaking their heads in synchrony as they tutted responsibly. Now, I didn't realize that it was de rigeur to actually say 'tut tut tut' - it always seems a bit Victoriana to me, something that belongs in Mrs. Beeton's Household Manual. But here was a veritable orchestra of tutters tutting.

Fairly obvious points - such as the fact that crappy, fatty fare like McDonald's actually has a miraculous ability to cheer miserable children up, or that we are genetically predisposed to like fatty and/or sweet food - were ignored. To hear Nestle talk, you would think that banning junk food advertising would lead to children ploughing gratefully into mountains of apples, carrots and broccoli, instead of deep-fried mars bars. (Oh please do pass the nutritious, life-saving steamed broccoli, mother!)

Nestle often undercut her 'blame the media' approach by using humour to criticize the aesthetic of fatness, which was of course the talk's major drawcard. She showed a slide in which the famous Uncle Sam recruitment poster had been transformed into a bloated old guy in striped pyjamas, imploringly holding out a hamburger towards the audience, saying 'I want you to eat fast food!' (much laughter: Look how fat he is! Just like those other Yank Fat Pigs!) I half expected an overweight child to be wheeled in on a charcoal spit, apple in mouth, for the slavering audience's delectation (one small helping per person, of course).

Although I saw a lot of talks, on issues ranging from terrorism to climate change, none recieved as manic a reaction as Nestle's. Why? I think it's because gleefully condemning the fat gives the skinny the unique opportunity to be visibly beyond reproach, because the signs of virtue are worn on the body. This is impossible when enthusiastically condemning those responsible for, say, climate change. After all, your carbon footprint is invisible, and extremely difficult to calculate, while your BMI is right there in plain sight. 'Don't blame me - I eat organic boiled miso rolls', say the bony of thigh and taut of skin. 'And, uh, you?'

While it would be nice to think that these people had developed a sudden burning desire to ease the burden on our public health system, I would be surprised if any other 'health issue' prompted an equivalent response: can you imagine a crowd of people gleefully clucking about the rise of Golden Staph infections in hospitals, for example? Or the burden caused by the aging of the population?

Fat chance.