The truth about ‘living with obesity’

It’s been brought to my attention that it is no longer done to describe a person as fat. Better, apparently, to say that they are ‘living with obesity’.

This weasel construction makes obesity sound like a malevolent squatter who refuses to be evicted. Or like a bit of genetic bad luck, such as ‘living with ginger eyelashes’. It’s someone else’s fault.

The western world has undoubtedly lost the plot with regard to diet, but before I say more, full disclosure: I am, according to the flawed metrics of BMI, obese. I reject the label, not because I’m in denial but because an index that ignores age, sex and muscle and bone mass isn’t really worth a light. I’ll stick with the Tightening Waistband Indicator. In fact, I wear the same dress size as the late and glorious Marilyn Monroe, though admittedly with a different distribution of flesh. Mine has moved south, but then so might hers have done had she lived longer.