Fat people are stupid

The relentless attack on the obese continues, and is beginning to make Dr Crippen uneasy.

Britain has been declared the “fat man of Europe”. A quarter of our adults and sixteen percent of our children are now officially deemed to be obese.

I have not the slightest doubt that if all the people deemed to be “obese” were to lose weight, their general health would improve. But it is not as simple as that. There is a question of self-respect, of self-esteem. A lot of people who overeat do so not just to “fill a hole” in their stomach, but also to “fill a hole” in their lives.

The more the media batters them, the bigger the hole becomes, and that applies particularly to fat teenagers. Next stop anorexia.

There is another problem. If a quarter of the population share a certain characteristic, we have to re-consider our concept of so called "normality".

It gets worse. It seems that it is not just your physical health that may suffer. Now a piece of research has appeared which purports to show that the more weight you put on, the lower your IQ goes.

I find this hard to believe. But the media loves it and will take great delight in declaring the obese to be both ugly and stupid.

This is not going to help.