It certainly doesn’t mean that a potential hire is not offered a job because he/she is catholic like it used to happen in the old days. It doesn’t mean “wogs” like me are abused incessantly about their racial origins at least when work comes into it (that did happen to family members).

What we have now is a pretty good attempt at what we most wanted in the old days- when those things mattered and people like Hugh Morgan could run a company like Western mining to the ground because he had “breeding”. Doesn’t work like that these days.

CEO’s get booted at the drop of a hat if a firm isn’t doing too well. Most CEO lives only extend out 3/4 years after which they will find it hard getting a job if they get the boot for non-performance.

Which really gets to the point. People are hired not only on aptitude expectation but also on demeanor, perception and deportment. These three elements are very important in how a person carries off job interviews. It is especially important at a senior level and sales where its people represent the firm.

If a person is overweight, looks unkempt and doesn’t go over well in an interview that’s a failure on his or her part. Call it discrimination if you like because in the end it doesn’t matter. We all discriminate and it’s far better this was fessed up to rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.

As a former smoker, I know exactly what you are talking about seeing I worked in a place where a smoker was considered even worse than a leper. I gave it up.

The ladder of opportunity has never been as easy to climb as what it is now, but is is still a ladder and there are things we need to do to be successful in life. Apologies to Mark Latham for stealing his ladder.

That doesn’t shed any light on the actual issue, though: why are the poor overrepresented in the obese population?

One possible reason for the upper class being under-represented in the obese population is employment discrimination. Forget race and gender: physical appearance and what we think it says about an employee has a great deal to do with many employers’ hiring practices. It is more difficult to be obese and successful in many industries – even lower paying ones. The obese are unfairly considered less intelligent, less hard-working, less confident, and less self-discplined. As Toynbee says, this level of discrimination and social exclusion begins very, very early. If you are already slightly predisposed to being heavier when young, early exclusion may lead to a sense of hopelessness and/or stubborness about losing weight to fit in. Such hopelessness, stubborness or apathy can follow you throughout life with employment discrimination and social exclusion.

Toynbee says:

People will only get thinner when they are included in things that are worth staying thin for. Offer self-esteem, respect, jobs or some social status and the pounds would start to fall away.

I agree that social status, respect and a good job are powerful motivators for self-improvement in various ways. But which employers or exclusive social circles will offer the obese jobs and status while they are obese? Sadly, not many. In too many industries, you have to be thin first to be successful later.

See you in Jaunuary some time. Merry Christmas to you all.

James, when I said it rang true, I guess I was referring to Polly Toynbee’s psychological portrait of despair driving obesity. (This is a wild generalisation for which I have no empirical support either but as far as obesity is concerned I think of it like this. The factors that JC mentioned make us fatter than before. When you get overweight it’s really really hard (at least for many people – not so much for me I’m a skinny bugger) to get skinny.

But it’s also pretty hard to get morbidly obese. To do that you (usually) need to work at it. I think that people whose psyche has not been overcome by despair – or in Polly’s language those who are into some delayed gratification – will do things to stave off morbid obesity. It’s not that hard. You try to walk or run a bit and you eat more veges and less sugar and fat. You only have fast food once in a blue moon.

If you’re cursed with a body that puts on lots of weight easily, not doing these things is a kind of slow suicide – like alcoholism. You can take to it from despair (and probably some biological predisposition) and then your failure to act more in your own interests humiliates you more and into a negative cycle you go. I expect gambling is similar though it leads to a kind of social death rather than a physical one. Most of us are aware of one or two things in our own make-up like this – and we battle away keeping it (more or less) under control.

The point is that just the US – outside of the two big cities NYC and LA where eating anyting more than a carrot stick for lunch and dinner is considered excessive if not exercised off att the GYM- it’s bullshit to consider this just a problem of the “poor”.

Get outside of the Eastern Burbs and the like of the two big Oz cities where that mindset prevails fattties are everywhere and in every socio economic group. In other words obesity is not simply a problem with the poor. I would have thought my last comment made that pretty obvious.

In any event according to a Harvard study last year obeisty doesn’t shorten lifespans only because medical advancement has actually compensated for this.

It would be good to see numbers that actually prove the problem is with the lower socio-economic groups. Taking the word of a journalist these days on leads down the wrong path.

“Things that are worth staying thin for”

How about saving money to buy your next fix or the next round, Polly Toynbee? If you want the working classes to look like Kate Mosses and Pete Townshends, c’mon, the secret isn’t reducing their diet, it’s increasing it—their diet of naughty powder, that is. A few meals skipped in favour of booze or a bit of goey does wonders for your body image and to the esteem of others: look at Chris Hitchens!
Ah, anti-social substance abuse. Is there anything it can’t do?

Define poor. You need to explain exactly who you mean by “poor”

I was waiting for a flight from Sydney today and by co-incidence I was looking round the terminal and thought to myself that I could just as well be in Middle America with the number of fatties breathlessly wobbling the terminal. I wouldn’t categorize these people as “poor” if they can afford a plane ticket.

An airport is a “middle class” (and upwards) type hangout.

In any event while in Sydeny I got hungry yesterday afternoon. Wifey was shopping so I “visited” and Hungry Jacks for a “score”. The one noticebale thing about that visit was that i was the only non- Asian in the joint. This was the Pitt Street mall I’m talking about and not an Asian Burb. These people looked pretty thin to me.

People get fat because now they can afford it.

As for the uneasy class stuff oozing out of so much commentary about this issue, I’m reminded of the observation that only the true upper class and lower class really do what they’d like to – whether it’s fucking around or stuffing your face.

It’s the middle and upper middle class – the haute bourgeois – torn beween aspiration and falling behind that gets so censorious about others lifestyles.

99% of people know that having shitty fast food every night , although it tastes great, is bad for you. We all know that if you sit on your backside the entire weekend watching DVDs or playing computer games weight will evtually be an issue.

Fatness is all to do with wealth and not poverty. That piece has it arse backwards. Society is showing signs of obesity because we can afford a lot more calories and it’s caloories that are converted to fat.

Incidentally, I remember some health researcher saying on Late Night Live a few years ago that in the US weight is a better predictor of income than race.

But her ‘psychological’ explanation of the fact of increasing obesity amongst what she sees as the ‘lower classes’ has the ring of truth to me. One need not see the causation running the way she does – from being down to having less preparedness to delay gratification. The ‘lower classes’ could be lower classes because they (and/or) their parents showed less interest in delaying gratification. I’m sure there’s a fair bit of causation running that way.

The question remains do some social arrangements minimise this and what are they?

Particularly one who is descended from the intellectual Toynbees on the one hand and the Earls of Carlisle on the other and was able to purchase a second home in Italy on the proceeds of writing about the misery of the poor.

I agree entirely with Ken on the oozing condescension of Toynbee’s unidimensional
depiction of the poor as sad, fat people morosely gorging on Cheezels, wistfully dreaming of being slimline Scandinavians – or upper class Guardian journo’s. There
are real lives being lived in Toynbee’s narrow perception of socioeconomic “deprivation” – often joyful and celebratory, even if morbidly obese. Not everyone gets off on carrot stick salsa, Pilates and the latest Chomsky.

We’ve all got fatter because we live in a world where, increasingly, it’s possible to eat more and exercise less and human beings tend to take advantage of both.

What’s wrong with the simple explanation that (1) we are genetically hard-wired to take easy energy on board when it’s available and (2) we are culturally disposed to regard self-indulgence as an essential part of the good life? Increasing wealth at all income levels has allowed people to satisfy both.

Wealthy people respond with char-grilled tuna, a bottle of Henschke and a couple of Belgian chocolates to finish whereas the poor have to make do with a pizza, two litres of Pepsi and a tub of ice cream. The motivation’s the same in both cases – to make ourselves feel good both physically and emotionally – but the consequences for weight gain are not.

OK, bad pun. But a serious question. Can we adjust these figures by daily average kilojoules or kilocalories? If the average daily intake has risen, has it risen for some groups more than others? In line with GDP or measures of inequality?

In fact, this sort of argument is exactly what Austrians are talking about when they engage in another two minute hate against statistical research.