Things are really getting out of hand!

It seems that governments are intent on dismissing the importance of human beings who are deemed to be "larger" than the accepted norm. Now what the norm is, or should be, is very debatable and no one seems inclined to actually face up to the problem and the discrimination that abounds within society as a whole.

Denying people the right to be healthy at whatever size they may be, by pressuring them to become thinner at whatever cost (whether financial, emotional or physical) is downright wrong. The larger person is becoming larger for many reasons, and certainly not all of those reasons relate to eating too much or even to not exercising enough. The controversy continues as to what is in the food that we are eating or being provided with, and until such time as someone with any nous does some serious research, then we'll be none the wiser.

But that doesn't get away from the fact that "serious" papers and scientific research are being published that really stretch the concept of common sense. The latest research deals with the alleged assumption that "fat" people are less intelligent than thin people. Some countries are extending this hatred towards "bigger" people to extremes.

The suggestion is that fat people will be charged more for: train/tram/bus fares (they already are made to abide by airline rules that two seats have to be purchased and paid for before a larger person can travel). We already have health agencies and hospitals refusing to treat or even admit people who are over a designed BMI (even though in many cases those BMIs were acceptable as recently as three months ago). Larger pregnant women are being refused admittance into local or nearby hospitals for the birth of their babies. There's more suggestions - fat people should pay more for food (in other words does this suggestion imply that "food police" will be on the staff of all supermarkets and will go through your trolley before you enter the cashier area, and they'll mark the items that have to have a special tax on them?). Larger people already pay a lot extra for clothes and shoes.

Then there are the restrictions being put upon children. A small 3 year old (confirmed by the Baby Welfare Sister as being well within the weight limits set, and certainly not fat) was recently ostracised at a childcare agency. The mother was asked to put the child on a diet, otherwise she would not be accepted at the centre. The mother took the case to the media, and with substantiated documentation from doctors, the welfare department and the health department in her hands, the mother took the child from the centre, and enrolled her in another in the same suburb. The publicity the initial centre received was certainly not good. But think about how the little 3 year felt - already being subjected to discrimination and unjustified hostility because of her chubbiness. In fact as a result of the media publicity the little one was chosen to become the "face" of children's wear for a leading Australian department store and appears in all their publicity modelling the babies/toddlers clothes.

School tuck shops have been warned that they must only sell food that the government decrees. "School police" (obviously teachers who will be chosen by the school principal) will check all the children's lunch boxes to see they don't have food that is not "on the list of acceptable food". Surely this is going too far?