Common Sense, Please!

You've probably read/seen/heard about the shitstorm in a teacup that is the reaction to Mia Freedman's blog post about Gainers - obese people who purposely gain weight, sometimes for monetary gain. "Fat Activists" accused her of "fat-bashing", and of course those bastions of quality journalism, Today Tonight and ACA got on board, giving Mia a hell of a time. Aside from being instantly inflamed at the unfairness of it all (and the shoddy, shoddy excuse for a 'story' it made), it made me wonder - why such a strong reaction? Anyone with an ounce of reason would think something along the lines of: beautiful people come in all shapes and sizes - large, small, short, tall, pear-shaped, stick-thin. But in the same way anorexia is acknowledged as being dangerously, life-threatening unhealthy; why was there such an outcry when somebody (or a group of people) pursue an equally dangerous, life-threatening lifestyle? Why shouldn't people be allowed to point out that it's quite obviously so far above and beyond any reasonable interpretation of a healthy body image? Let's just look at it: being, for example, 345kg, and aiming to gain at least another 300kg (yes, 300kg) is not something anybody should celebrate. We shouldn't be name-calling, we should be calling a doctor.

I'm sorry if this offends you. It's none of my business if you're a size 18 or a size 8 - as long as you posess the powers of reasonable thought, I'd be willing to bet you're not outraged by any comments here. There's a difference between anti-'fat' and anti-'morbidly-obese-creating-your-own-death-sentence'. Let's get some perspective here, people!