The Edutainment — Fatsploitation Spectrum

Why, during Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, has there been so much talk of adults? Because it has been clearly shown that children who are overweight or obese will probably battle with size issues all their lives or, even worse, just give up and embrace the “there’s more of me to love” philosophy. Many obese adults are former obese children themselves. And they are likely to become the parents of obese children, modeling and enabling harmful eating patterns and food relationships for the next generation of kids.

So, child obesity and adult obesity are pretty much the same issue, a distinction without a difference. Or maybe more like a case of, “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

Another question that has been asked before is, at what point does edutainment ooze across the line into fatsploitation?

In 2011, The Independent reporter Nick Harding wrote:

Open a TV guide or flick through a magazine, and you will find a measure of our culture and an indication of where we are as a society. With shows like Half Ton Mom, Fix My Fat Head, Supersize Teens: Can’t Stop Eating and Fat Teens in Love…

He also mentioned the small but devoted fetishistic subculture that has grown up around very large women. Increasingly common is what some call societal fat phobia, which is said to be more readily tolerated and encouraged than other brands of prejudice. Harding says,

Fat phobia is fuelled by the way the overweight are characterised on screen.

So again, the interaction between awareness and media might reasonably be blamed for mischief. Still, entertainment can be educational, and educational materials can be entertaining, and what’s the harm? Or at least, that is one school of thought.

Temporal contrast

An interesting thing about a piece written a decade ago is that the reader can see how any predictions played out, and enjoy other timeline-related thoughts. Harding wrote of a popular TV show,

Drop Dead Diva took the controversial step of casting a US size 16 (UK size 18) actress in the lead role… Although Drop Dead Diva goes some way to redressing the fat phobia balance, it still employs stereotypes to explain Jane’s obesity.

However, it did last for six seasons (78 episodes). At the time, Childhood Obesity News said this:

Although Jane is the main character, very few of the episodes touch on her weight issue at all, and she is certainly not shown to be agonizing over it. And although plenty of other factors conspire to keep the lovers from reconciling, Grayson apparently has no problem, conceptually, with squiring a hefty lady.

The show’s creators did their public service duty of spreading awareness. For instance, a character revealed the number of women’s clothing labels that made items larger than size 14, that total being only 20 out of 900. Thanks to some forward-looking attitudes, the well-regarded series collected a goodly amount of thoughtful commentary and respect.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Unhealthy appetite: Is ‘Fatsploitation’ fuelling the obesity crisis?,” Independent.co.uk, 10/23/11
Image by sammydavis53/CC BY 2.0

Edutainment and Jim Gaffigan’s Books

Two questions: What is more entertaining than comedy? Other than humor, what could more effectively be matched up with education, to produce the hybrid genre known as edutainment?

Although standup comedian Jim Gaffigan came from a large family, he did not really envision himself as a potential father. He married relatively late, at 37, and currently has five children. His New York Times bestseller, Dad is Fat, is said to be parent-oriented, and more about kids than fat.

Still, if it provides even one helpful insight related to childhood obesity, that would be more than most books do. Any time the subject of excess weight creeps into an American home, the atmosphere becomes fraught. Many parents find obesity more difficult to talk about than sex.

Gaffigan reminisces about the Yuletide season in his childhood when his own mother gave him McDonald’s gift certificates, also known as “coupons for poison.” He goes on to say,

McDonald’s introduced the gift certificate prior to the obesity epidemic. I’m not saying that McDonald’s gift certificates caused the obesity epidemic, but in retrospect, the timing is kind of suspicious.

Another Gaffigan publication is Food: A Love Story, which encompasses a different kind of awareness, to the point where a fan calls it “A book on totally embracing all your food sins.”

In person, the comedian/actor/author is not svelte, and invites his audiences to join him in laughing at his circumference. This makes him the perfect candidate for the job of obesity conversationalist because, as he points out,

If a thin guy were to write about a love of food and eating I’d highly recommend that you do not read his book.

He describes himself as not a “foodie” but an “eatie,” and defends himself by asserting that he tries to stick to three meals per day… “and three more at night,” a peculiarity that actually is widely shared in not only this country but many others. Gaffigan loves cheese, and he does not care who knows it. The exception is American cheese, which he says tastes worse than the plastic sheets that separate the slices. His attitude seems to be regretful self-acceptance, combined with empathy for others who are equally stuck in their ways.

Other roads

Other comedians take different paths, like Lisa Lampanelli. Formerly known as a roast comic and the Queen of Mean, she created a 90-minute live show called “Losin’ It” to provide encouragement for people and help them find humor in their struggles with weight and body image issues.

Actor and comedian Ron Funches lost around 150 pounds, and has maintained for years. His podcast “Gettin’ Better” provides a marvelously supportive and positive atmosphere for listeners who share the same health and fitness aspirations that brought him out of his slump.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Dad Is Fat,” Goodreads.com, undated
Source: “Jim Gaffigan, Food: A Love Story,” Goodreads.com, undated
Image by JPAvocat/CC BY 2.0

Obese Adult Voices and Awareness

A writer publishing under the pseudonym Your Fat Friend once discussed the TV show, The Biggest Loser, which Childhood Obesity News has also reflected on before. Apparently, the contestants were verbally abused a lot, but such people as Army drill sergeants swear that it is very motivational, and they should know. Also in the name of motivation, but with much more potential to cause serious injury, one trainer was criticized for removing the seats of stationary bikes used by the contestants.

Other serious assertions were made, for instance, that contestants were fed caffeine pills without medical oversight. One had to be airlifted to a hospital, while another was allegedly forced to run with fractured feet, and another “stopped eating altogether and urinated blood.” A woman lost 118 pounds in three months, which is not recommended, and developed a serious eating disorder. According to one weight expert, it was miraculous that no one had died.

Your Fat Friend wrote,

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health conducted a longitudinal study that analyzed 14 former contestants for six years following their appearances on the show. Of those 14 participants, 13 regained significant amounts of weight. Not only had their weight increased, but their metabolism also appeared to be permanently slowed.

This of course means that the body will not burn calories with anywhere near the efficiency it needs to, so the person goes back to piling on the pounds.

And what is the point? This type of show is for entertainment, so viewers can gloat over their own relative slenderness and engage in an orgy of fat-shaming that their victims probably will never hear — although at the same time they are very aware, in a general way, of the public scorn they attract. This type of programming is about exposure, so advertisers can sell products.

Every media production can don the protective cloak of Raising Awareness, because the makers of television believe they have a sacred duty to show the public where overeating can lead, or so we are told. In that version of reality, it is the task of television to shake its head ruefully and wag its scolding finger, admonishing the ignorant to change their ways. To justify exhibiting the obese grownups and exposing them to ridicule, media giants can sanctimoniously claim that they are only fulfilling their responsibility to prevent childhood obesity.

Is the trauma worthwhile?

Of what does a TV show like this really make us aware? What it should do, in the opinion of another expert, is make us aware that if even these winners, these best-of-show dieters, these champion weight-losers, get messed-up metabolisms, then how can we ordinary slobs ever find redemption?

Are such programs educational and inspirational, or detrimental? What type of awareness is actually raised? Where does awareness end, and something else begin — something that seems, in the eyes of many viewers, akin to obesity porn?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “‘The Biggest Loser’ Is One of the Most Harmful Reality Shows on Television,” Medium.com, 01/12/20
Image by Camilo Salazar Patiño/Public Domain

Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and Edutainment

Edutainment can be found in both schools and homes. It has long existed in one form or another, like chess, Scrabble, singing the ABCs, and a card game called Authors. On the fancy end of the spectrum, there are lavish interactive museums where visitors of any age can commune with science and discover wondrous revelations.

Even physical education is considered a classic example of the genre, and this has always been seen as an important factor in the general field of obesity prevention. The earliest sports involved no props, or only some object that could easily be found in nature — a branch, a log, a boulder. Today, games, toys, and media all play their parts in motivating kids to improve their bodies and minds.

Screens

For many decades now, movies and television have been purveyors of edutainment. “Sesame Street” is a primal example. In an area like childhood obesity, there are instructional shows, like how to perform a series of exercises, with music as their entertainment element. In the narrative, there is the vast area of documentary non-fiction, and then another spacious realm of fiction. Like it or not, movies and other audio-visual media have quite a lot of influence over what people grow up knowing and/or believing about obesity.

The whole idea of edutainment is to make learning fun, or at least passably enjoyable. Rewards, like points and levels, are considered very important to keep kids motivated. Amazingly, there used to be students who found Latin, algebra, and even calculus sufficiently entertaining and rewarding, in and of themselves. Some experts see the entire edutainment trend as problematic, but it is definitely here to stay, at least in certain cultures.

Examining young consumers

The authors of a serious academic paper about kids as consumers recommend looking up an episode of the Nutri Ventures series as an example of edutainment, and because this is what they showed to some of the 189 children who participated in their study. The kids, from two public schools, were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The researchers concluded that “isolated edutainment may not be enough to change preferences and food choices; instead it might even have an opposite effect.” Authors Diana Sintra and Luísa Agante wrote:

The purpose of this paper is to see if edutainment containing only healthy food can change children’s preferences and food choices toward healthy eating, especially in overweight or obese children…

This study aimed to identify if edutainment containing only healthy food could be more effective in childhood obesity prevention but instead it showed how complex the whole topic can be.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “What Is Edutainment? Tips for Mixing Education and Entertainment in the Classroom,” American.edu, 09/17/21
Source: “Edutainment in childhood obesity prevention: a complex topic,” Emerald.com, 05/07/21
Image by Korean Resource Center/CC BY 2.0

Like Giving a Heroin Addict Drugs

During the current Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, we have been examining the role of the media in creating awareness, and the reasons why that can be a double-edged sword.

Back when Barry Austin was still alive, Britain’s former heaviest man (770 pounds) talked with a journalist about his life as a media darling, and the perks that came with it. He loved not only the room service in hotels but the praise and attention. Comparing the combination of endless free food and star-worship to heroin, he characterized himself as an addict.

Later, Dr. Ellie Connon described Austin as super-obese, not meaning “super” in a good way. She had been urging him to get medical help, and he had responded by dragging his feet. Connon wrote,

Barry lives within 15 miles of Heartlands Hospital, which has a £10 million new weight-management clinic, pulling in the best dietary, psychological, medical and surgical treatment — but Barry seems almost amazed that such services exist. While complaining that he has been abandoned by doctors, Barry admits he hasn’t sought help. Instead of medical support, he has a film crew. There are TV commissions in the pipeline, but no GP appointments.

A short life but a merry one

Who knows why any individual chooses to live in a self-destructive way? But as Dr. Connon mentions, the career of a professional morbidly obese person affects others, too, like family members, friends, and sweethearts. In the widening circle, there are other societal impacts, like the expense incurred by agencies obligated to buy oversized, heavily reinforced gurneys, hospital beds, and ambulances for hefty patients.

Journalist Nick Harding wrote a piece called, “Unhealthy appetite: Is ‘Fatsploitation’ fuelling the obesity crisis?,” and Austin was certainly one of the people he had in mind.

Another was Daniel Lambert, and speaking of heavy-duty vehicles, that fellow used to travel around England in a specially reinforced carriage. His weight was said to be 52 stone (a.k.a. 728 pounds) and according to portraits by contemporary artists, he was round as a bowling ball. A one-man freak show, he charged the locals a fee to look at him — and probably the painters, too.

The human body, says Harding, was specifically designed to seek out and consume food with high caloric value and ease of access, and to store it internally, in anticipation of hard times. Speaking of the present day, he says, “There has never been a more opportune time to store fat.” Similarly, there has never been a more opportune time to exploit obesity. He quotes an anonymous entertainment executive who cites the public’s demand for “the bizarre and the extreme.”

One theory is that readers and viewers like to wallow in the lives of more messed-up people because it makes them feel fortunate in comparison. In other words, it’s all about good old-fashioned schadenfreude, delight in others’ misfortune. This informant also told the reporter, “If you put a web cam in the world’s fattest man’s bedroom, people would watch.” To return to the theme of awareness, Harding says:

[F]rom the TV companies to magazine publishers and, ultimately, the consumers queuing up to take a guilty peek at the latest sideshow curiosity, we are all culpable to some extent for the way obesity is represented.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Bitter remorse of Britain’s fattest man,” DailyMail.co.uk, 12/07/13
Source: “Unhealthy appetite: Is ‘Fatsploitation’ fuelling the obesity crisis?,” Independent.co.uk, 10/23/11
Image by Phillip Roberts/CC BY 2.0

Obesity, Awareness, and Media

During Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, it is useful to consider some wider and deeper reflections on awareness, which is a neutral term in itself. However, seen as a spectrum, the quality of awareness can stretch from positive to negative. People have many different thoughts about the effect that so much media awareness of obesity has had, over the years. Take Barry Austin, for instance. When asked about his career, Google comes up with such gems as, “Related searches — how many times a day does Barry have bowel movements?” Think of it as just one of the many prices of fame.

A broadcaster named Tom Ross is quoted as saying, “Barry’s weight was an issue for some people, but never for him… Barry was always happy within himself…” Really? Among other things said by Britain’s fattest man:

I have let a lot of people down over the years…
I have really messed people about saying I was going to change, but never doing anything about it, and I know I have hurt a lot of people.
People need to know how dangerous obesity is. It is an illness…
I feel desperately sorry for people who get trapped in the cycle of over-eating because I know what they are going through…
I have no one else to blame for the state I am in but myself.

In 2014 a journalist confirmed, “Barry admits that for much of his life he has been eating himself to death.” And in a piece whose title included the words “perilously ill” and “bitter remorse,” Dr. Ellie Connon wrote of how, unable to breathe properly and suffering the effects of multiple infections, Austin regretted his “misguided quest for fame.”

He realized, or at least felt it was appropriate to say, that weighing several hundred pounds was not actually the “badge of honor” it had previously seemed. Dr. Connon wrote,

For Barry, a film or photoshoot became the only reason to make the considerable effort to go out. But he concedes: ‘TV shows didn’t help me. They put me up in a hotel and said eat and drink whatever you like. It was like giving a heroin addict drugs.’

It seems unsurprising that Barry finds a great deal of affirmation in fame.

“Everyone knowing who you are, giving you respect and love, that’s a nice feeling,” he says.

Yes, perhaps a bit too nice, when the respect and love are given for reasons that are ultimately harmful. In his youth, Austin received attention and praise for consuming more than any other eating contest entrant. Later, he garnered the same rewards for making a public spectacle of his efforts to lose weight. Apparently, both kinds of acclamation could prove to be equally toxic.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Britain’s ex-fattest man’s last message to friend before his tragic death at 52,” Mirror.co.uk, 01/02/21
Source: “World’s biggest natural loser?,” FridayMagazine.ae, 03/07/14
Source: “Bitter remorse of Britain’s fattest man,” DailyMail.co.uk, 12/07/13
Image by Snap/CC BY 2.0

The End of the Barry Austin Story

Apropos of Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, let’s talk more about the biggest purveyors of awareness (whether right or wrong, fair or biased, accurate or ridiculous) — the media.

A decade ago, journalist Nick Harding wrote about Barry Austin, who had long held the title of Britain’s Fattest Man before losing it to someone else. To briefly recap, the 770-pound Austin was in physically terrible shape, unable to get out of bed, and “waiting to die.” He both loved and hated the constant barrage of media attention that had brought him to that place.

Harding made some pointed observations about the kind of “fatsploitation” that leads to morbidly obese people being “wheeled out on reinforced gurneys for our entertainment.” He also noted the irony of media programming that ostensibly warns against obesity while selling products that promote obesity.

After that article was published, Austin’s health improved and he became engaged, on Valentine’s Day, to his longtime sweetheart. Early in 2014, the same journalist wrote about the same morbidly obese fellow again.

At the time, he had pretty much been housebound for five years, with type 2 diabetes and an assortment of other health issues. Austin told Harding,

I am the best visual aid against overeating there is… I decided to do something not just for me but for other people and to raise awareness of obesity…

That is what Austin said at the age of 46, having made a New Year’s resolution to lose 450 pounds without bariatric surgery, although he did get some kind of a balloon inserted in his stomach at one point. At any rate, he aimed to become the poster boy for massive weight loss.

In 2013, he brought in personal trainer Donville Hendrix who outlined a diet to help with the mission. Apparently, for some period of time, Austin was going to a gym three times a week, which presented logistical problems because he could not fit into a car and had to be driven there in a minibus. At first, he could only exercise sitting down, and later could stand for a few minutes at a time, and then needed to sit again.

Together, the two men hoped to visit health centers and schools to talk about obesity issues, and a filmmaker was recruited to make a documentary about the effort. With any luck, maybe they could change the attitudes of people like the friends of Austin’s youth, who always encouraged him to enter the eating and drinking competitions that he invariably won. This was on top of a customary consumption of up to 29,000 daily calories.

When he inevitably became the fattest man in the United Kingdom, he enjoyed the infamy at first. No stranger to media attention, he was featured in the documentary “Inside Britain’s Fattest Man” as well as many other filmed works including a comedy-drama called “The Fattest Man in Britain.” By the time this 2014 interview was published, Austin was saying,

I could have a by-pass but I would feel like a cheat. It is a severe operation and not a quick and easy fix. My way is the more healthy way of doing it. I ate myself into this mess and I am going to diet and exercise myself out of it.

Sadly, he was unable to achieve that goal. Almost a year ago, at the age of only 52, Barry Austin died.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “World’s biggest natural loser?,” FridayMagazine.ae, 03/07/14
Source: “Britain’s former fattest man who ate 29,000 calories a day, drank 12 litres of soda a day and weighed 65 stone dies aged 52,” DailyMail.co.uk, 01/02/21
Image by milfodd/CC BY 2.0