Fashion Industry

Guardian, 9 December 1997
Fascist measures
by Linda Grant

Grant picks up on the story that The 'roly-poly Michelin Man' has been slimmed down in order to command respect. She wonders why, above drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, 'fat has become the single most inexcusable vice?' In the USA fat has ironically come to be associated with poverty; Winners control their body. She also spots a loophole in political correctness, whereby it is okay to poke fun at fat people, who 'have only themselves to blame'. This view is smug and wrong. As a curable addiction obesity is intensely difficult and can spiral into serious eating disorders. As the fashion industry drives down the limits of the ideal body 'until even size 12 is considered porky', huge problems are left in its wake. Grant concludes 'its just fat, for God's sake. It may harm the person who's carrying it. But why does it bother you fat fascists so much?'