Too big for the beat: are our police officers too fat for the job?

According to the front page story in yesterday’s Metro – the world’s largest free newspaper with 1.3 million copies distributed to UK commuters every morning, a large proportion of police officers in the Met – Britain’s biggest force, do not fall into current BMI guidelines for a ‘healthy weight’. Apparently, 52% are ‘overweight’ and 22% are ‘obese’. The writer further implies that these officers are not fit enough to do their jobs. In fact, he seems to suggest that the two are the same thing.

This is not the case.

It is entirely possible to be both fat and fit. There are a lot of people who would be deemed fat by current standards who get plenty of exercise and maintain a good level of fitness. What’s more, people who are heavy and fit tend to live longer and healthier lives than people who are thin and unfit, and have similar outcomes to people who are thin and fit. In other words, the weight has absolutely nothing to do with health or fitness. Fitness is a separate issue, and a far more important one than size.

It may be true that larger people do tend to engage in less exercise in general. There are two main reasons for this. First, many people deemed to have bodies that do not meet culturally imposed external standards of acceptability have frequently been told that they need to exercise to lose weight. Now, exercise is incredibly good for your health and offers far reaching benefits for everything from heart health to mental health. What it isn’t good for is weight loss. Repeated efforts to sweat themselves into a smaller clothes size without any effect whatsoever means that many fat people have developed an absolute hatred for physical pursuits and have forgotten how incredibly good it can feel to move our bodies for the sheer enjoyment of it. Related to this, stigma about weight means that many people are embarrassed to be seen exercising. They think that people will laugh at them and call them names. Sadly, they may be right. But the worse people feel about their weight, the lower their confidence in their abilities, the less activity they engage in, and the less they tend to enjoy it when they do.

This shaming has to stop. The best thing that people can do for their health, whatever their weight, is to move more. Indeed, the amount of movement needed to maintain a decent level of fitness is surprisingly low, and people who are not currently fit can experience huge gains very quickly.

But let’s get back to our bobbies. This news story was based on a report from the largest review of police pay and conditions in 30 years. You can check out the original here. The so-called health data used in the report is seriously flawed. Even so, it does not say what the Metro says it does – that overweight officers who fail to lose weight should be sacked. What it does say is that annual fitness tests should be introduced for all serving officers. Those who fail should be given assistance to improve their fitness levels. Repeated failures may lead to dismissal.

 It doesn’t seem unreasonable that serving police officers need to be fit enough to do their sometimes physically demanding jobs. But healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and approximately 80% of the size we settle at is influenced by our genes. Would anybody suggest that weight lifter Holley Mangold, who at 5' 8" and 374 pounds has just qualified to represent her country at the 2012 Olympics, would not be able to lift a body if the need arose? Or that Vince Wilfork, a pro-American footballer named to both the Pro Bowl and the All-Pro team in 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011, would not be able to run after a criminal?
 

Headlines like the one above are not only highly offensive, but they serve to perpetuate an anti-obesity rhetoric that is unhelpful, ill-informed, scientifically unsound, and would be considered extremely prejudicial if directed against other groups of society. To suggest that heavy officers are unfit for the job is nothing more than outright discrimination and doesn't belong on the front page of Britain's third largest newspaper.

Where have all the good men gone?

On Thursday I launched a facebook ad campaign for my new business, Never Diet Again UK. So far I think it's going quite well, with 56 new 'likes' in three (not yet over) days.

What surprised me a bit was how many of them were from men. The ad simply has the business name, and a pic from my website of a very happy-looking redheaded young woman jumping in the air. That's her on the left.

I don't know why I should be surprised. Men are increasingly being stigmatised over their weight, more traditionally a woman's curse. They too are being made to feel less worthy because their waist measurement doesn't fit the current thin 'ideal', or because their glistening firm pecs don't jump off the page in family photos like the steroid-pumped, surgically enhanced hunks on the cover of men's fitness mags. OK, some of those hunks may naturally look like that anyway (with the help of too much time in the gym and a bottomless supply of egg whites, chicken breasts and protein shakes) - like women, men's bodies come in all shapes and sizes. And that's a good thing. But weight stigma doesn't discriminate by gender, race, age, or anything else.

So to try and speak more directly to my new male fans, I decide to check out some websites or blogs from men who were overweight, but had learned that dieting doesn't work, wasn't helping them, and wasn't the answer anyway. And you know what? I couldn't find any. Not one. Now I don't doubt that somewhere out there such a resource exists, and I'd love to hear from you if you know of any, but there is clearly a significant imbalance here. 

I am afraid that those of us promoting body acceptance and health rather than weight are focussing almost exclusively on women. We probably feel that women are more likely to need our help. Or maybe, we as women, have been quicker to fight back against the diet industry that has disempowered us for so long, and we now want to help others like ourselves. But 30% of hits in a 3-day period tells me that we are failing an important segment of society who also need our help and support. Either that or they all have a thing for redheads!

In contrast, the diet and weight loss juggernaut has been quick to jump on this increased body hatred in our male compatriots, as well as helping to fuel it. So this is a call to others in the HAES community. Let's not forget the boys.

Proof that dieting is bad for your health

The Whiskas Diet

I've got 2 cats. So I bought a large bag of Whiskas Biscuits at the supermarket and was standing in line at the check-out, when the woman behind me asked if I had a cat.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Meaty Bites Diet again. I explained that it was essentially a perfect diet, the food is nutritionally complete, and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Meaty Bites and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry.

It was so easy that I really wanted to have another go, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time. But I had lost 25 kgs before I woke in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's in both arms.

Horrified, she asked if I'd ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned by the food.

I told her no, it was because I'd been sitting in the middle of the road licking my self clean when a truck ran over me.

You have been warned!

Where does it begin? Where does it end?

In the news this week, Disney launches its new interactive exhibit at Epcot. Called Habit Heroes, the exhibit is designed to help kids beat their bad habits. All good and well, you'd think, but some of the bad habits have raised a bit of a stink.

Take, the Glutton. He overeats and he eats too fast. And just look what happened to him! Or the Snacker: too much fatty processed food. And look at poor old lead bottom. He doesn't get enough exercise.

What kind of messages were these characters sending? Weight stigma groups and people working in the area of childhood obesity have been up in arms. Some people didn't understand why - of course if you're fat you must be a lard ass glutton. Why else would you look like that? Have some self respect and pull yourself together.

Kids who don't know what they're doing wrong are made to feel like dirt by their peers, their doctors, even their families. And now Disney wants to take a stab at them too. Never mind that the only food and drink available in Disney parks is of the somewhat rapid variety. Or that lots of thin kids eat junk and get no other exercise than to turn on their PS3s. Making judgments about people's character from the way they look tends do be frowned upon in most other populations. Unless you're fat. Then, you're fair game. You must deserve it.

We aren't born fat phobic. Very young children prefer cuddly caregivers. But weight stigma hits young. By the age of 6, US kids will already prefer a severely disfigured child to a fat child as a friend. They describe the fat kid as "lazy, dirty, stupid, and ugly". Young girls are more afraid of being fat than of nuclear war, getting cancer, or losing their parents. College students rate overweight partners as the least attractive marriage material, after embezzlers and cocaine users, amongst others. And in one study, over half of women aged 18 to 25 thought that being hit by a truck would be preferable to being fat.*

Where is this madness going to end? Well, there is some good news. Less than a week after this exhibit opened, the uproar in the press and on social media has seen Disney close the exhibit down for tweaking and the Habit Heroes website is offline for 'maintenance'.

People power.

* Note: The weight stigma stats came from a book I'm reading at the moment: Beyond a Shadow of a Diet by Ellen Frankel and Judith Matz.