Seriously. They’re just a blight on the landscape of life, literally embodying all that is wrong with these United States of America.
At least, that was the gist of Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly’s Monday-morning rant. She writes the “A Year of Living Flirtatiously” blog for the magazine, and in Monday’s entry, let us all know of her disgust with CBS’ Mike & Molly, a show about two overweight people who meet at Overeaters Anonymous and fall in love. An excerpt:
My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.
So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroin addict slumping in a chair.
I’m sure there are thousands, perhaps millions of others who share Ms. Kelly’s view, so why not just wipe all the fatties off the planet, starting with the 80 percent of black women who are overweight. And let’s not leave out all the obese children who are just one Happy Meal shy of a heart attack. Do you really think our medical system can handle their lifelong load obesity-related problems?
Kelly understands the overweight can’t be relied upon to lose the flab themselves. After all, some of her best friends are “plump”:
I'm not some size-ist jerk. And I also know how tough it can be for truly heavy people to psych themselves up for the long process of slimming down. (For instance, the overweight maintenance guy at my gym has talked to me a little bit about how it seems worthless for him to even try working out, because he's been heavy for as long as he can remember.) . . .
She’s right, you know. Fat people should not even try. Ever wonder why there’s a gazillion-dollar diet and weight-loss industry? The products don’t work, but the overweight are so dull they just don’t get it, so they keep buying all those pills and shakes and snack bars and prepackaged foods. It would be hilarious if these people weren’t so pathetic.
You know, huge factions of white people tried to get rid of all the Native Americans, then all the black people. With the Germans, it was the Jews. It’s time for thin Americans to rise up: They may be outweighed, but not outnumbered. Yet.
Kelly ends with this question:
Do you think I'm being an insensitive jerk?
Asked and answered, my dear.
‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursel's as others see us!’
~ Robert Burns, poet
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Leslie J. Ansley is an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur who blogs daily for TheRoot. She lives in Raleigh, NC.