Anthea Turner - fat shaming and disablist (covid)

[FTMF30]

So Anthea Turner has felt the wrath of pretty much everyone for her recent Tweet. Very silly of her, being someone in the public eye.

I felt she was trying to make a valid point but failed terribly with that offensive cartoon. And what did she mean with the caption "Go for it"?
www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/anthea-turner-twitter-fat-shaming-covid-face-mask-b919526.html%3famp

What do you believe the root causes of obesity are?
And whose responsibility is it to take action?

After the year we have had, with the known risks if you are obese, if you don't get a grip and do something about it, you never will. It's not about losing weight for aesthetics but for health. We are an overweight nation, and that is why our mortality figures are high (and slow to react government at the start of the pandemic). That isn't fat shaming, but people don't like to hear it, we mustn't offend, but all that does is make us the fat man of Europe. This should be our wake up call, but it won't be.

@tabulahrasa

“Not nearly the same. Really, please stop making an excuse - you can do something about it starting tomorrow”

Research shows that comments like that actually make people gain weight...

It yet again that is another excuse. No comment from anyone should make you put on weight. You are responsible for your own health. Stop blaming others and actually research positive steps you can make to start to lose it. It’s hard and I have lost 5 stones myself in the past years ago but it really is about taking responsibly for yourself. I know I should harsh, but like most people I am raging that my kids are missing out their education and likely to be missing out for a long time to come which will affect their future life. Then when I hear that the vast majority of under 50’s with covid in hospital are overweight / obese it makes my blood boil. I strive every day to not put weight back on. I make sure my kids don’t put weight on by buying the right foods and teaching them healthy choices. It a battle most days both with my own will power and desires and with kids who are forever asking and negotiating for unhealthy things to eat. I am not just ‘lucky’ to stay slim. I work at being a healthy weight every day (like most people in the 30% who are not overweight I would imagine) I angers me that because of many others not making sensible choices longer term, I am paying for it. So much on MN about selfish behaviour about not following the rules and wanting their child to see a friend after weeks shut away. In my mind, it also selfish to continue to eat so unhealthily, creating excuse after excuse, that you are likely to end up in hospital if you get COVID, prolonging this miserable existence for everyone

@Quit4me

She is almost 100% right. Didn’t need to include the wheelchair (if that is what the cartoon is meant to depict), but apart from that, spot on. I’m thrilled that some in the vaguely public eye has said something finally. As a PP said, the OVERWHELMING majority of hospitalised covid patients are overweight. Putting us very bluntly, people eating crap food and getting fat have contributed massively to us ALL having this soul destroying second lockdown. For gods sake- you have had a year A YEAR to loose weight. Get a grip and some bloody will power and stop eating shit!

Wow at the level of hatred. Tbh I think it is you who needs to get a grip.

Do you think anyone plans or wishes to be fat? Of course not. Do you genuinely imagine that your shaming and blaming is in any way helpful, clever or informed? Because if you do you are terribly mistaken.

Never in the history of mankind has making someone feel bad helped them to improve themselves.

And obesity, just like anorexia, is a mental illness that manifests in a physical condition. With the right supports in place, overweight people can improve their health very well but as we see, and have seen for decades now, the trajectory is alarming.

It is beyond time for everyone to supoort the unwell rather than to abuse them. And I say this as a thin person.

Blame and shame solves nothing, only a societal shift towards compassion and commitment to positive change will help.

The root causes of obesity are generally people not having some sort of emotional need met. But people can't generally manage if their emotional needs aren't met. So they try to get them met another way. In this instance, it's via food. Some people restrict their intake, some people increase it.

In terms of responsibility, I suppose we should probably look at why people aren't able to understand which of their emotional needs aren't being met, and address it. So I think that really comes down to the providing counselling for people who clearly struggle with food. However, I'm sure that won't be a popular view.

@changingmine are you saying that 70% of the uk population is mentally ill and needs treatment? If so, that’s never going to happen in a million years so we are very much all screwed longer term

@SquishySquirmy

Has anyone "genuinely tried to protect the NHS by looking after their bodies"? I mean, I try to make healthyish decisions most of the time and I am in reasonable good health (partly due to good luck). But I honestly don't do this for the NHS. Its for my own health and general feeling of wellbeing, and for vanity.

It has never crossed my mind when I drag myself out for a jog, or opt for just one doughnut, or eat an apple that I am doing it "for the NHS!" What a weird idea.

Are there really people out there whose sole motivation to be healthy is their deep love of the national health service???

A woman in a wheelchair won't be dragging herself out for a jog.

“It yet again that is another excuse. No comment from anyone should make you put on weight. You are responsible for your own health. Stop blaming others and actually research positive steps you can make to start to lose it.”

I didn’t mention my weight...

Just passing on that research shows that being told things exactly like that makes overweight people gain weight, it doesn’t motivate them to lose weight it just adds to the negativity they already have.

Would this be the same Anthea Turner who "protected" the NHS by supporting the party of austerity and a decade of cuts to public services? Including cuts to health education and healthy start programmes?

But yes, lets focus on disabled people with limited mobility.

@BeansOnToastWithCheese

The root causes of obesity are generally people not having some sort of emotional need met. But people can't generally manage if their emotional needs aren't met. So they try to get them met another way. In this instance, it's via food. Some people restrict their intake, some people increase it.

In terms of responsibility, I suppose we should probably look at why people aren't able to understand which of their emotional needs aren't being met, and address it. So I think that really comes down to the providing counselling for people who clearly struggle with food. However, I'm sure that won't be a popular view.

I think this is a very sensible view and certainly true for some people. I do not have any hatred of anyone for being fat. Not at all. I have been there myself. However, I do not believe the majority of overweight people have a mental illness or are not getting an emotional need met. I believe the majority of overweight people lead busy, stressed lives and grab food that is quick and easy. I believe that food producers have created food that is so delicious and designed to make you want more and more that it makes it almost irresistible. I believe that humans are programmed to eat high calorie foods and that desire is hard to resist. I believe that humans are programmed to take the path of least resistance, and will eat unhealthy foods because they are easy and delicious. I believe that sugar is addictive and it takes huge amounts of willpower to break a sugar addiction. However, no one wants to hear this. It’s always a mental health problem or somehow the fault of someone else, when for many this is not the case. It’s an inconvenient truth that can’t be discussed as you just get shot down and called disgusting. The truth is, not much seems to be being done about this, and each year more and more people are obese. Something needs to change and in my view should have changed last year

The obesity crisis has a lot to do with levels of happiness and mental health neither of which we do well with as a nation. Add alcohol into the mix too.

I hope at least mental health gets some proper funding now. 🙏

@Quit4me please tell me how it's not the same?
Anorexic people using up NHS money in clinics, that's ok is it? Because they aren't fat and lazy?
They can start eating tomorrow if it's as easy as that.
Please enlighten me

Not everybody who is overweight has mental health issues, for the vast majority it's greed and a lack of responsibility to do the best thing for health. Peddling the excuse that it's a mental issue means we will just carry on getting bigger and bigger. Nobody is expecting the average person to be whippet thin, just in a healthy range. The obesity rates in this country are shaming for this country.

The root cause of my morbid obesity is the cocktail of medications I need to be able to function. There's nothing at all I can do about that. Nor can I do anything about now having multiple joints in splints, including my hands and only access to a tiny corner shop for all my food.

I've a friend who has terminal cancer, extremely unwell yet she's also very fat, why? Because like me she must take a lot of steroids to keep a basic level of functioning. She's in a wheelchair. Last week I saw a group of people, yes a group, around her chair telling her to get off her fat ass and stop lazing around. I thought she was going to grab her stick and hit them. She was furious, the most angry I've seen her. When we talked she began to cry and said she didn't understand why people were being so awful to her. Shes in her 90s and looks eight months pregnant and feels like it as well. It's all down to her meds. She kept saying she going to stop her meds. All because of some idiots. Covid volunteers here now no longer help sheilders; diagnosed only; in case anyone is wondering why she was outside.

My family member who died of covid wasn't obsese but it's been found she had my condition (undiscovered before inquest) and it's carries a lot of risk for covid. The local dr who died wasn't overweight nor was the physio.

Being overweight isn't just about stuffing your face, there's many many reasons.

@Melange99

Not everybody who is overweight has mental health issues, for the vast majority it's greed and a lack of responsibility to do the best thing for health. Peddling the excuse that it's a mental issue means we will just carry on getting bigger and bigger. Nobody is expecting the average person to be whippet thin, just in a healthy range. The obesity rates in this country are shaming for this country.

You are very wrong, and frankly just peddling ignorance. Now would be a good time to stop.

@RiverSkater

The obesity crisis has a lot to do with levels of happiness and mental health neither of which we do well with as a nation. Add alcohol into the mix too.

I hope at least mental health gets some proper funding now. 🙏

Honestly I do laugh sometimes at posts like yours, the level of ignorance is breathtaking. Now would be a great time to educate yourself.

@tabulahrasa

“It yet again that is another excuse. No comment from anyone should make you put on weight. You are responsible for your own health. Stop blaming others and actually research positive steps you can make to start to lose it.”

I didn’t mention my weight...

Just passing on that research shows that being told things exactly like that makes overweight people gain weight, it doesn’t motivate them to lose weight it just adds to the negativity they already have.

So... telling someone they are fat and need to lose weight just encourages them to eat more and get even fatter?

Sorry River I misread your post as "is not" to do with levels of happiness. My bad. I take back my critical comment. I agree with you!!

@Melange99

Not everybody who is overweight has mental health issues, for the vast majority it's greed and a lack of responsibility to do the best thing for health. Peddling the excuse that it's a mental issue means we will just carry on getting bigger and bigger. Nobody is expecting the average person to be whippet thin, just in a healthy range. The obesity rates in this country are shaming for this country.

When it comes to obesity, poor mental health isn't an excuse, it's a reason. I agree that not everyone who is overweight has mental health problems - but if someone wants to lose weight and can't, or is chronically overweight because they have a difficult relationship with food, then to me it's a cut and dried case that willpower isn't going to fix the issue. If it was, they'd have lost weight by now.

I think most people here would agree that it's in everyone's best interests for people - where possible - to be fit, active and not very overweight. But if just telling people that they need to buck their ideas up, get some willpower and just lose weight worked, everyone would be thin by now. Patently, they are not.

We've got to find a better way of helping people who struggle to maintain a healthy relationship with food manage their weight.

“So... telling someone they are fat and need to lose weight just encourages them to eat more and get even fatter?“

Not in itself - depending on who says it, why and how.

But mostly, people who are overweight are well aware of the fact they’re overweight and need to lose weight.

So things that reinforce that all the negative things about how society and themselves feel about being overweight - because bear in mind they’re not somehow isolated from society living somewhere where they’re perceiving themselves differently - often leads to a weight gain.

If you compare obesity rate by country to covid death rate by country. They are wildly different so there's clearly a bit more to it than "It's all fat people's fault"
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate
Anthea Turner has clearly learned from Lawrence Fox and Katie Hopkins that a good way of reviving a flagging career is to demonize people to get yourself talked about. She's succeeded and I'm sure she'll get work out of it. Talk shows, maybe a newspaper column.

I wonder which would cost the NHS more - me coming off my anti-psychotics and anti-depressents and losing the massive amount of weight they made me gain and needing an incredibly high level of mental health support for when I inevitably have a full mental breakdown or me being fat but mentally well and so using the doctors far less than I was?

The point she was trying to make is moot though, at least within the context of Covid, because unless she's suggesting morbidly obese people who are disabled due to their size don't deserve protection via social restrictions (which would be bloody stupid of a celebrity) what is she suggesting? That they should immediately jump in a time machine and suddenly be thin?

Nobody that big can deal with their weight issues overnight. And let's face it, the things we are mostly trying to protect here are the NHS and the elderly (in terms of numbers, at least).

She's made herself look like a shit there, even if she's given the benefit of the doubt of coming from a good place.

@ktp100

The point she was trying to make is moot though, at least within the context of Covid, because unless she's suggesting morbidly obese people who are disabled due to their size don't deserve protection via social restrictions (which would be bloody stupid of a celebrity) what is she suggesting? That they should immediately jump in a time machine and suddenly be thin?

Nobody that big can deal with their weight issues overnight. And let's face it, the things we are mostly trying to protect here are the NHS and the elderly (in terms of numbers, at least).

She's made herself look like a shit there, even if she's given the benefit of the doubt of coming from a good place.

Nailed it x