This concerns one of the most mind-numbing BBC coverage areas of recent times: the fat issue. The BBC just loves an opportunity to wax on about swollen numbers of fatties. The mass of stories are contradictory, tendentious, and depressing. There are stories like this from the deterministic point of view- and stories like this from the social conditioning point of view. All the time the BBC infuriatingly racking their brains about how to rid themselves of the offending fatties, without ever considering that eating and lifestyle need balancing.
And then a completely different sort of story comes along. A heartwarming story (heart-burning story?) of an eater that would have made my Grandmother proud who also happens to be a world-beating athlete. What’s that I hear from the BBC? A chirping of crickets? A blanket of absent coverage?
Is there really nothing more biased on the BBC at the moment? Fattist? Good grief, are you drunk or something?
If fat kids balanced their eating with the amount of exercise Phelps does there’d be no problem in this country.
You frequently accuse the BBC of glossing over issues like house prices and the economy, but when a genuine problem that can be avoided BY THE INDIVIDUAL is reported, suddenly it’s bias?
How exactly would you like this incredibly dangerous increase in child obesity to be reported?
Phelp’s diet is truly astonishing, oddly the best advertisement for becoming a world class swimmer. Why do we only ever hear about the early mornings rather than the fried breakfasts?
The amount of anti-Phelps reporting by the BBC is astonishing btw. Anyone catch the RACIST report on the 10 O’clock news?
A hatchet job saying Phelps isn’t a great sportsman but that Ali, Pele and Tiger are. The justification for using these examples of great sportsmen was laughable, they transcended sport or some-such gobbledegook. Ali perhaps but Pele and Woods? No.
Could you imagine the outrage if the BBC had denigrated a black Olympian saying he wasn’t a great sportsman and then given examples of three white men who were?
All those skinny models making our kids fat.
beeb should do a prog. on this important issue for bbc3
DA- maybe you misunderstood-
“If fat kids balanced their eating with the amount of exercise Phelps does there’d be no problem in this country.”
That’s exactly my point. Fat stories aren’t news- pure nannying, pure statism, pure BBC, and for those of us who disagree with nannying and can’t agree that it’s the state’s business ie. something must be done!, to imply that it is is just bias.
Too subtle for the DA?
Just when you thought the BBC would never used the ‘T’ word out it comes with a porker of a story.
Obesity ‘equal to terror threat’
The threat to Britain and the NHS from rising obesity is as grave as that posed by terrorism, a top expert says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7559420.stm
Anybody remember the Judge Dread stories from the 80s were fatties went round mugging people for food?
Err it seems a fat bastard ate the ‘h’ in where. Damn those Terrorists….
Today the blogs, tomorrow McDonalds..
Obesity as big a threat as terrorism. I can’t believe how dumb some people are. They completely miss the point about the nature and consequence of terrorism, what it is, its intent, the atmosphere of fear it intends to create, as well as the basic qualitative differences between deaths caused slowly over years by bad eating habits, and being blown to smithereens in a ball of fire on a subway train.
The idea that obesity is as big a threat as terrorism is just like saying that car accidents are as big a threat as terrorism. And hey, what about those plastic newspaper ties that Ester Rantzen warned us about every Sunday evening in the 80’s? Are people still tripping over them and cracking their nuts? As big a threat as terrorism!
The problem with the BBC is that it has absolutely no bullshit filters in place at all. They’re like ten year old schoolkids.
But hey, we can all relax and not fear anything; the State is creating more and more “A” graded geniuses each year who will surely cure us all for our sins of which the almighty State disapprove.
I would have thought someone would have asked if the increasing intelligence of the nation’s kids correlated to rising obesity across that age group?
Just where is the ‘real’ pseudo scientific study the Beeb is usually is so keen on?
I mean 25% of kids with ‘A’ grades – just how fat are they!?
We need to know!
Almighty Beeb – please tell us what to think as I am confused!
Ed,
You are kidding aren’t you? You compare the calorie intake of an athlete with how much a couch potato eats.
What do you think will happen to Phelps’ weight once he stops swimming while maintaining his diet?
the article is spot on, ed.
I thought it was plastic bags that were a greater threat than terrorism 🙂
I get it, some of you, just like the BBC hate fatties, a lot of it irrationally.
Not clear what you’re saying about BBC bias though.
Sometimes the threads here just become excuses for invective minus evidence against one group or other.
Serves no purpose whatsoever and doesn’t advance the biased BBC case one jot.
There have always been fat people and I expect there always will be, and I’m sure the majority of them wish they were not in that state.
Get over it commenters.
I just had a vision of a fat terrorist in a gas-guzzling sports-car.
Must be the Hamas CEO.
the point is now fat people are terrible, fat people are evil, fat people are the new terrorists. Those nasty selfish milk stealing tory fatties destroying the planet with their unsustainable western lifestyles…yada yada yada.
YAWN
Ban junk food, it may be a pseudoscience but lets ban anything we decide is ‘junk’, in fact lets ban all capitalist products and let the state provide our nutrition.
Gunnar
“What do you think will happen to Phelps’ weight once he stops swimming while maintaining his diet?”
Dunno you tell us.
You assert that he will maintain his diet once his swimming career ends.
It’s more likely his (understandably) immense appetite will wane when he gives up training and competing.
Apart from Eddy Merckx, I haven’t seen any retired world-class athletes ending up as waddling fat bastards.
There have to be tens of thousands of people like me who regard the idea of the government taxing foods I like ” for my own good ” to be abhorrent.
The BBC doesn’t think our views are important enough to provide a counterpoint to this idiocy though – actually they probably don’t even realise that such views exist, not being very familiar with conditions outside their metropolitan bubble.
For them state intervention is almost always de-facto a good thing.
That’s bias.
Hi Andy,
Not sure why you think I assert that Phelps will maintain his diet once he stops his current occupation.
I don’t know what he is going to do. If he carries on eating, as he currently does while dropping his workout, he will likely put on one or the other pound.
Agree with you, that he may drop the portion size.
We’ve got an ultra-nannying government which decides just how much cash the BBC gets, so it’s hardly surprising that the BBC adopts the same attitude towards the population.
We all do what our paymasters expect of us.
gunnar | 14.08.08 – 3:13 pm |
“Not sure why you think I assert that Phelps will maintain his diet once he stops his current occupation.”
Could this be the reason why:
“What do you think will happen to Phelps’ weight once he stops swimming while maintaining his diet?”
Hi Born Again Redneck,
Sorry, but where does it say he will maintain his diet.
“while maintaining his diet”
Right in front of your bloody eyes dickhead!!
I don’t know if this the point being made, but it does seem odd that the Beeb hasn’t picked up on this. The Times, Guardian, Mirror and Star all have, and it does seem the sort of story the BBC normally likes – so accessible!
I agree that it’s hard not to suspect the social workers on the news desk have decided to veto the story for fear of encouraging obesity.
BBC not being biased ?
Fat chance.
Sounds like this fatty issue is another EU directive, because Holland’s porkies are being targeted too: http://rss.xinhuanet.com/newsc/english/2008-08/12/content_9235271.htm
The Dutch government’s nutritional advice agency has recommended city governments to ban the building of snack bars and fast-food restaurants around schools in an effort to combat obesity in young people, Radio Netherlands reported Tuesday.
Worried about the fast increase in the number of Dutch people with overweight problems, the Netherlands Nutrition Center said Dutch municipalities should stop the growth of fast-food restaurants in neighborhoods with an abundance of such outlets.
Andy wrote:
What about Diego Maradona? Of course, he’s also a coke-snorting Communist apologist, so he’s a fattie the BBC like. 😉
Fat bastids
smokers
drinkers
dog walkers
car drivers
The lifestyle nazism list grows, financed by my taxpayer dollars.
Glad I’m old enuf to enjoy a last hurrah before you wunderkinder get to inherit the upcoming decades.
…can’t say I’m jealous of ya…glad I grew up with the post WW2 generation…hic…cheers
Andy wrote:
Apart from Eddy Merckx, I haven’t seen any retired world-class athletes ending up as waddling fat bastards.
George Foreman, Charles Barkley? Ted S. beat me to the punch with Diego Maradona.
A quick Google-around suggests that the degree of current physical activity is the key to the state of former athletes.
I’m just a little puzzled why a New York Post article should raise such a dispute in a biased BBC blog?
By contrast with BBC health selectivity, Deegee. By contrast.
Yeah yeah, there’s always going to be exceptions to the rule. But I would bet my bottom dollar that the majority of these retired athletes don’t go on to become grossly overweight slobs.
Diego Maradona, Foreman et al became a little tubby but in no way could be described as morbidly obese, or even obese, yes?
The point is that BBC and their liberal ilk would love more government interference in our lives.
You can no longer be fat, buy the ‘wrong’ foods, throw out the ‘wrong’ rubbish, enjoy an occasional beer/cigarette, go on foreign holidays, drive a car or spend your money any way you like without one of these cocksuckers laying on the guilt trip.
Once you accept that it’s the duty of our perfectly wise government to protect us from our foolishness, no objections can be made against further encroachments.
Just to be fair the BBC has a Phelps’ diet piece on line.
Food for fuel: Olympian Phelps’ unusual diet.
Yes Deegee- I almost linked it (may do still actually) but I found the presentation rather off-putting. Too mamy health warnings, not enough positives.
Yes, the Beeb finally covered it two days after everyone else. Fortunately, that’s given them the time to find enough nutritional experts to warn us of the dangers of such a diet. All the news that’s safe to publish.