Sunday Roast - Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Magazine July 4 2004
FAT’S ALL FOLKS
Our pollies may have plans to put our chubby kids back on the exercise treadmill, but maybe they should take a look at their own set of man-boobs first, says Wil Anderson
I was a fat kid when I was at primary school, and I mean really fat. Put it this way, if Tony Squires had been doing a television show on the ABC back then, it would have been called The Wil.
When I ran, I sweated gravy, when I bent over, the other kids painted Goodyear on my butt, and when I stepped on the scales, it asked me to enter my initials as the new high score.
Sure, plenty of kids that age have puppy fat, but I looked like I had been eating entire puppies - deep-fried in batter.
I was so fat that if I’d gone to the same school as Fatty Vautin, he would have been known as A-Little-Bit-Tubby-But-Nothing-Compared-To-That-Boombah-Wil Vautin.
Yep, kids can be cruel and I copped all the usual taunts. How they heard a beeping sound whenever I backed into a room; how the Great Wall of China and my arse were the only things visible from space; how I had to wear Levi 5001s; how if I went to war, I’d take my partner Skinny; or even how if I got a bad fake tan, I could go to work for Willy Wonka in his chocolate factory.
It was terribly tough being a tubby tot, so that’s why I’m glad our politicians have finally bitten the chocolate-coated licorice bullet and decided to do something about childhood obesity.
With more than a quarter of Australian children now classified as overweight, it’s time to admit the Lucky Country has become the Tubby Country.
Opposition leader Mark Latham fired the first shot by suggesting if we banned junk food ads during kids TV, Fat Cat, Dorothy the Dinosaur and The Fat Controller could all lose a few kilos, and maybe Humphrey could even fit back into his pants.
Personally, I think this is a brave idea. Sure commercial TV needs ads - let’s face it, without ads, the last series of The Block would have been over in 15 minutes - but when the only oranges our chubby kids are eating at quarter time of sports have the words "Terry’s" and "Chocolate" on them, you know it’s time for drastic measures.
Prime Minister Howard said under new government plans, kids would be required to do two hours of compulsory physical education a week. It’s a good plan, but I don’t think it goes far enough. They should make Michael Jackson the PE teacher, now that would really get the kiddies running.
Then, just when it seemed like we were all getting somewhere, the Minister For Missing-The-Point, Tony Abbott, made the debate personal by sticking the boot into Mr Latham’s weight, calling him Dr Man-boobs.
Coming from a government who have had to get the front bench reinforced to support some of their boombaladas, this seemed like a case of the pot calling the kettle fat.
Some of Abbott’s colleagues aren’t just an MP, they’re an entire electorate, and the only thing they should be shouting out in parliament is, "Bring me Han Solo!"
One minister in particular (whose name sounds a lot like a sport he doesn’t seem to play much of) looks like he is smuggling so much crack in his pants, I’m surprised Whitney Houston isn’t trying to smoke his arse.
That said, if Latham (or any politician) is going to lecture kids about losing weight, then they should set an example and it’s fair to say that since Latham has stopped putting his foot in his mouth, he does seem to have been substituting it with pies.
The potential PM now has the biggest man-boobs in the media since Miriam. (Being an ALP man, his boobs do lean slightly to the left, and when he jogs his nipples bounce in the shape of the ABC logo.)
His advisors knew he was in real trouble when they discovered the book he was reading to school children was actually Margaret Fulton’s Greatest Australian Cakes.
Maybe he should take a leaf out of the Prime Minister’s book and start power walking. You can say what you like about Mr Howard, but he certainly keeps himself fit, although can someone please tell the PM that just dressing in a Wallabies tracksuit does not make you look athletic.
At 64, dressed in his trackies, he looks less like he should be going to Parliament House, and more like he’s popping down to the local RSL to put a couple of bucks in the pokies.
The most disturbing image of the PM wearing his tracksuit came during the Rugby World Cup when he was photographed watching the Wallabies play, dressed in his Wallabies tracksuit. Which begs the question - when he’s watching the cricket, does he get dressed up in whites, pads and a helmet?
And please newspaper editors, no pictures of him watching Thorpey at the Olympics.
Wil Anderson is the host of The Brekkie Show on Triple J with Adam Spencer, as well as co-host of The Glass House on ABC TV.
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