denigrating the participants allows media and society's elites to avoid confronting the role of the media (yes!!) as well as inequality and a dsyfunctional work/life balancce culture in increasing obesity rates as well as lack of reliable, frequent mass transit to many areas of our cities.

Congratulations, Lydia, on a very sensible article

I agree that it's time the focus was shifted from weight to health - I'm overweight and as you point out, no matter what I consult a medical practitioner about the first thing focused on is my weight. I now reply, 'just as a matter of interest, do thin people ever get this problem?'. To which the answer is always yes. The search for the real issue then begins.

I'm a regular blood donor, and I am now used to hearing the nurse doing the prelims coming out with a surprised 'oh, your blood pressure's fine'. Although I'm technically obese I ride my bicycle to and from work every day and usually go for a longer ride on weekends, I haven't eaten between meals for a number of years and I'm reasonably careful about what I eat and drink. In every respect other than my weight I'm very healthy.

I now follow the motto: 'Live life carefully, but live life well!'

Why do fat people insist on allowing themselves to be treated like fat idiots?

I know Lydia. It's all about people being bullied and beguiled. But lets cut to the chase here. The Biggest Loser is about entertainment. Is it right that we pick on fat people, midgets (the height challenged), single mums, the poor, blacks, the Amish? I have no idea. Is it a matter of rights? Not really. It's a matter of taste.

If the contestants were force marched on to the show with Mahler playing in the background and made to dig their own graves, I'd probably say 'enough is enough'.

This is a hard argument to win because the Biggest Loser, for all of its crassness, does make people think about their weight problems. The fact that they put the contestants through a regime that might kill them is incidental. In marketing terms that's called a 'unique selling point'. Still though I admire the forthrightness your article.

I have an idea for a show along the lines of the Biggest Loser. It would be hosted by Melinda Tankard Reist and the anti-abortion lobby. Women who wanted abortion would have to wrestle Melinda and Cardinal Pell in a three way, no holds barred, live TV spectacular. Eddie McGuire to compare. Now that's entertainment!

Cheryl you just said picking on black people is "a matter of taste." WTF?

Let's just do away with all discrimination laws while we're here, shall we ?

You do realise that people who are oppressed often end up internalising the values of those in power. The Biggest Loser contestants participate because they are brainwashed into believing that all of their problems are due to, as Lydia puts it, "energy-in, energy-out" and they have internalised this shame.

They are fat for bio-psycho-environmental reasons. They participate because they truly believe the show will help them, but really all it does is ridicule them for entertainment purposes and normalise the bullying of fat people, while putting their health at risk.

Do you know that bullying of fat children in school has significantly increased over the past decade? And that these children are at risk of significant harm as a result? Or are you happy to see that continue, maybe you were one of those schoolyard bullies who picked on anyone who was 'different.'

Your willingness not only to turn a blind eye but to actively defend such treatment disgusts me. SHAME

Bonnie

Perhaps they should eat less?

Hmm, let me down a kitchener bun, a coffee scroll and a litre of Coke before I answer Bonnie. Yum. A moment on the lips is a life time on the hips or in Bonnie's case, eternal shame.

Girl, I should slap your face with a Tim Tam because you've gone too far. Don't you put your victim theology on me. Gee, Peter hit the nail on the head in five words.

Why should women be set up to adopt this 'us and them' sisterhood rant of over-read feminist drop outs who because they're INCREDIBLY unsatisfied, want to tell us what to do. You want to widen (pun intended) the anti-discrimination laws for fat people? I want less laws. A lot less. Set your treadmill to full speed and expire.

Cheryl? You want to slap my face ?

You assume that I am fat simply because I believe fat people deserve to be treated like human beings, with dignity and respect.

So assuming that I am fat means I deserve to be treated with violence. I am stripped of all human rights.

Do I have to be a Jew to oppose the Holocaust too?

Not actually being fat myself, you would assume if you looked at me that I was healthy. Yet I might be prone to cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, cancer, I might drink or smoke too much, etc at the size I am at now.

You assume you know everything about my health and behaviours just by looking at me.

What I stand for, Cheryl, is the promotion of fitness and eating well to everybody, regardless of what size they are at. It actually takes a lot of effort to maintain fitness, but at least it is something that is sustainable.

Like Ian D's comment- as a fat man, he engages in healthy lifestyle behaviours. The fact that weight loss has not occurred might not be his fault. Our bodies are incredibly effective at defending fat. Contrary to popular opinion, you can lose weight but sustaining that weight loss after 2-5 years is unlikely.

If weight loss was as easy as just eating less, the commercial weight loss industry would be out of business.

By the way, emerging research is showing that people can be fat and fit, and that it is actually better to promote fitness to those who are already fat, rather than promoting weight loss.

Also - significant improvements in health have been demonstrated, independent of weight loss.

If we can't make fat people lose weight, rather than bully them (or physically attack them as Cheryl would), why not make them fitter?

They may or may not lose weight, but at least it's sustainable.

I think that "bio-psycho-environmental reasons" is the best term I've heard all day. Have to agree agree with Peter, though.
It's a real bummer that I have to go to town right now (catching the bus and walking) as I would look forward to following the posts by the minute.
Bonnie, No one likes the thought of fat people being bullied - especially at school, but it's up to their parents to make sure they don't get into that condition. It's all very well to blame it on western society, but somewhere along the lines we have to take responsibility for our own eating and exercise habits and those of our children.

Bonnie, you've cut me to the core but yes, if I have to save you by hitting you with a Tim Tam, I will. I'm not a violent person, I'm a product of my generation, which is to say, I haven't done much with my life and everyone else is to blame!

I don't think you're a fat person. Your writing isn't fat and you're not infused with the happy, bubbly self depreciating humour of fat people. Like you I am all for sustainability. It's an adverb I put at the end of almost every sentence I write.

The only way to stop heffers eating six times their own body weight per day is aversion therapy. Every time they grab a pie, it's 110 volts where the sun don't shine. Trust me, it works. Sometimes I do it ... without the pie!

But lets home in on the issue here, lets go back to 'the text' as they say at Uni. Lydia is having a red hot go at The Biggest Loser because it uses the lowest common denominator (visuals) to denigrate fat people. But that's only true if we believe it. When I see a horizontally challenged person I don't think 'Biggest Loser' - I think, gee, how does that guy have sex or more charitably, it's just as well airlines don't sell seats by weight.

Oh yeah, it's not the 'bio-social, thingo..' that makes people fat, it's the inability to say no. But you know that.

"the inability to say no" is why people are so overweight?

Thank you Dr Cheryl, can you tell me what medicine or science you specialise in?

Do you also think that all skinny people are anorexic? Must be an inability to say yes hey?

Sara J Russell, a favourite poet of mine wrote an article, The Culture of Spite, where she explored what she saw as a disturbing trend of abuse presented as humour. This excerpt on fat people is taken from it:

"...The ultimate disrespectful circus is the recent Celebrity Fit Club. It seems to have been filmed for maximum indignity and wobble-factor for the overweight contestants, who almost cripple themselves running around fields, starve themselves, exercise until they ache all over and simply get laughed at for their trouble, though at least they make money for charity at the end of it. Having been overweight myself at several stages in my life, I really feel for them.

I wonder what the reason for the new Spite Culture could be. Perhaps the abolition of dog-fighting and capital punishment has left a gap in some more savage, ancient sectors of our souls.

Perhaps we need to laugh at other people so as not to cry for ourselves. Whatever the reason, we always seem to be actively encouraged by the media to feel scorn for our fellow human beings, whenever they are humiliated on television. It's not cool or fashionable to say anything nice about anyone. No, that would be too gushy.

They say the devil has the best tunes. Maybe the critic has the best street cred. But remember, critics often pontificate about something they once failed at themselves."

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=1775&id=8041

Being fortunate enough not to have to fight to stay lean I never really understood what it is like to walk in the shoes of a person who for whatever reason is overweight. However I think that Sara is onto something when she talks about the developing culture of spite which is also evident in Australia, along with a solid dose of envy and jealousy.

I don't know how these awful emotions have surfaced to become uppermost in Australian culture but they are there nonetheless. Governments playing one sector of society of against the other couldn't have helped.

I am always rushing and my editing often fails. Apologies. That last sentence should have been:

"Governments playing one sector of society off against the other couldn't have helped."

I agree with Lydia in her assertion that the TV program shows bullying of overweight people shamelessly.

The weight loss industry is big business. Many of the weight loss methods advertised set people up to fail, leading to them needing the programs/foods again, and needing to spend yet more money.

Merely saying that overweight people need to eat less is not helpful.
They already know this. And if it was that easy, there would be far less fat people in the world.

Human beings seem to want to criticize other human beings in order to make them feel better about themselves.

People also constantly criticize others for being anorexic,
smoking, taking drugs, mental disorders, birth defects,
different coloured skin, big nose, small breasts,
small penis, red hair, buck teeth, too loud, too shy,
body odours, too short, too tall, too nerdy, not sporty enough
wears glasses, wears too little clothing, wears too much clothing,
religious clothing, etc etc.

Is there anybody that hasn't been criticized for something personal about their bodies or appearance?
No? How did you feel? Bad?
Well then, shame on you if you criticize people for being overweight.

I am replying to the post by one Peter Hume, and I quote "Perhaps they should eat less?" There are many issues that can cause obesity, first and foremost in my mind is depression.

From an early age all humans learn that using the mouth for chewing and sucking is a pleasurable activity - hence the reason why babies like to suck on things (bottles, dummies, etc.). The action of chewing/sucking is linked to the brains pleasure centre, the baby find it is pleasurable to suckle and so it does while at the same time the action causes it to be fed. This fundamental connection between the action of chewing and the pleasure centres of the brain never fully disappears.

So how does this relate to depression, well having suffered from it myself I can say with authority that when you are depressed very few things can give you pleasure. One of the few that still works – thanks to the miracle of the mouth brain connection – is eating. So one eats when one is depressed, one eats which causes weight gain, poor self image, bullying, etc.; which in turn cause the depression to be worsened; which causes one to eat. And so the cycle goes on ad-infinitum. You will find that (as I have) that a great many people who are depressed are also obese, which then feeds back into their depression and so on. Bullying will ONLY EVER feed into depression and likewise into obesity in susceptible persons.

So Peter, yes perhaps they should eat less. But I can say as for myself after having lost over 35kgs put on by my own depression that if I didn’t have the escape of eating I wouldn’t be alive today! Boiling it down in my case to the simplest components it was either eating or suicide, eating got me through some of the roughest times. And before anyone says, yes it was quite literally like that – no joke, no exaggeration! So Peter, like everything else in life – it’s not that easy!!

Arthur,

Some people eat. some people drink, some people smoke. Some pick up a habit to help cope with a greater issue, some indulge in self-destructive behaviours because they dont have enough self-esteem not to, some because they dont know any better, and some because they bloody well just want to enjoy themselves (and dont get off on sweat)!!

Really, its human nature to pick on anyone a bit different Look in any school yard. Its been going on for-ever - hardly new just because its now on tv (although I am somewhat disturbed that this suggests a level of acceptability).

The biggest problem is that so many make the assumption of the inherent "goodness" or "smartness" of people based on their appearances. Its one thing for this to happen in the schoolyard, another thing for it to happen in larger life, particularly when we should mostly know better.

As for the biggest loser - the biggest losers are those that go on reality tv expecting to get something out of it for themselves. Humiliation on tv wasnt invented by this program, so any one lining up to go on it is lacking in the quality that I think most highly of - brains!

For once I agree with Cornflower, as well as Suzie and Arthur.

Here is an article that supports Arthur's comments and also explains some of the complex psychological factors that might result in obesity.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/120/1/e61

Other studies have shown that stringent dieting can result in a paradoxical weight gain (the body stores instead of burning because it thinks it's in a starvation situation); lack of sleep or poor sleep can result in weight gain or prevent weight loss; sudden cessation of exercise (often through age or disability) - especially in people who have been very athletic, can result in substantial, hard to shift weight gain; many medications assist weight gain; being dehydrated can tend to weight gain - people mistake thirst for hunger; various endocrine disorders and some genetic disorders result in a chubbed up body. I also think that our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, too much use of transport instead of walking and cycling; not enough getting out and staying in touch with the outdoors - makes it harder to manage weight gain.

Judgmental comments like, "They should eat less." are unkind and unhelpful. It's strange to me that people assess themselves (with some range of faults, like anyone else) as superior just because fatness is not one of their problems. Take Kirsty Alley - A beautiful woman no matter what her size but she has struggled with yo-yoing all of her life. Why should some skinny dope consider him or herself superior to someone like Kirsty? Do they think they will go to heaven with applause because they weigh less?