UK fatties demand 'hate crime' status for lardo-baiting

Woebegone British swingbellies have launched a campaign against anti-lardo "hate crime" and discrimination, even as a survey of possibly gutbusting Germans has revealed that being "overweight" is actually not a health hazard.

The British flab-lib campaign is reported today by the BBC, which quotes Kathryn Szrodecki - described elsewhere (and pictured) by the Beeb as "a full-figured woman firm in her belief that to be big is not to be bad" as saying that the long-belted community face a grim life of discrimination and abuse in Blighty.

"I have been discriminated against - I am a YMCA qualified fitness instructor, but I have gone for jobs and been laughed off the premises," the rotund campaigner told the Beeb.

"I have been punched, I have had beer thrown in my face," added globular persecutee Marsha Coupe. "They say 'Move out of the way fatty!'"

"Someone being beaten up should be a crime," commented Szrodecki.

Meanwhile in Germany, most people are judged "overweight" by the famously unreliable Body Mass Index (BMI) method. Top Teutonic boffin Matthias Lenz of the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Natural Sciences of the University of Hamburg decided to look into this, compiling 42 different German health studies together to find out if being in the "overweight" BMI range (as opposed to "ideal" or "healthy") had any negative health consequences.

According to Lenz and his co-authors, being "overweight" (BMI 25 to 30) "does not increase death rates" at any age range, though being "obese" (BMI of 30 or more) does.

Regarding less serious outcomes than death, being "overweight" means an increased risk of heart trouble, but a decreased risk of bone and hip fracture. "Overweight" German men even had a slightly lower risk of dying from cancer.

In summary, the German study-of-studies found that "overall mortality is unchanged by overweight, but increased by 20 per cent by obesity, while extreme obesity raises it by up to 200 per cent... an increased morbidity and mortality risk has been confirmed for being underweight".

The results appear to chime with a recent study out of Canada which showed that being "overweight" was actually somewhat healthier than being "ideal" in terms of lifespan. Being "extremely obese" or "underweight", as in Germany, was a bad idea.

The German study can be read in full here (English pdf).

Meanwhile the UK porker campaigners are demanding San Francisco-style anti-fatscism laws, designed to prevent lardos being unfairly denied housing or jobs. In the UK there is currently no special legal protection for fatties as there is for those persecuted on religious, ethnic or sexual grounds. ®

Full disclosure: The author is 6'3" and 16 stone, ie one of the overweight. He feels able to survive in today's hefty-hating climate without special legal protection, however; though the memory of being refused a place as cox of a ladies' rowing team many years ago still stings.