Cue the angry response from a litany of rotund women angrily insisting their size is about ‘women’s body autonomy’, that ‘fat can be healthy’ and it’s none of skinny-minny Jamelia’s business.‘A huge proportion of our teenagers are well over the weight they should be. I am all for celebrating people as they are … but I do not think it’s right to facilitate people living an unhealthy lifestyle. ‘I don’t believe stores should stock clothes below or above a certain weight. They should be made to feel uncomfortable when they go in and can’t find a size. It shouldn’t be normalised in high street stores. They should have specialist shops.’
There was even a Twitter campaign, from defiant self-styled ‘curvy fashionistas’ using the hashtag #WeAreTheThey who accused Jamelia of ‘bullying’.
One tweeter, Debz, insisted: ‘People’s health is their own business and if someone chooses to be plus size and healthy or unhealthy that is up to them. The idea behind the hashtag is that EVEN if people are unhealthy, they have a right to buy clothing without being made to feel uncomfortable.’
But Jamelia was simply telling the truth. This isn’t about fat-shaming or bullying obese people, it’s about being cruel to be kind, about being honest with people who are sporting their whole-tray-of-muffins-tops with pride while they eat themselves into an early grave. No one wants to see children – or adults – being bullied for their size, but when you can simply buy bigger and bigger clothes to cover your ever-bulging body, it is simply making the problem worse.
When shops sell XXXXXL school uniforms for grossly obese children and super-trendy outfits for over-sized teens, they are sending out a message that their size is normal, acceptable and healthy – and even desirable – when it is, in all honesty, none of those things. If high street stores stopped selling clothes in plus-sizes, it would send out a clear signal that ‘You Are Now Too Fat To Buy Normal Clothes – It’s Time To Lose Weight’. But of course that wouldn’t be playing by the rules of Fat Club, would it? Because we are all supposed to sit back and say nothing as an entire generation is fattened up for slaughter before their time. Still, as long as they’re dressed in the latest fashions and we all play along with the Big Fat Lie, then nobody gets hurt.
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