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Published on August 13th, 2014 | by Mediocre Mother

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Mediocre Mother

The post I receive, like most people’s I expect, is pretty dull. I get less from the bank than I used to, not because I have become more financially savvy or less overdrawn, but because I’ve switched to ‘paper-less’ banking. This does involve a bit of ‘ignorance is bliss’ as I rarely check my statement on-line, but I do get a text when I (regularly) spend more than I should. I think the most exciting thing that normally comes through my post box, apart from Town Crier of course, is a ‘book people’ catalogue – love those people.

Anyway, just to mix it up a bit, I got a letter, with a stamp (!) posted from Tunbridge Wells. Interesting I thought, a letter with a stamp and it’s not my birthday. Upon opening I immediately spotted my GP’s address. Oh joy, that could only mean one thing, yes, ladies you know what I’m referring to, that thing we hate so much. I was, however wrong. On closer inspection it was ‘an invitation’ no less to attend a full health check. I love receiving invitations but something about this event, made me wish that I had been ‘NFI’.

The words ‘weight’ and ‘cholesterol’ screamed out of the page. I know I’m a bit overweight and that I consume a unit or two (ahem) of alcohol more than I should, but in this instance, my doctor’s ignorance is bliss. I know I should be grateful for the chance of a health check, but I don’t think any of us like to be put under the microscope, and to be found less than perfect. Nor do we like to be told what to do about it.

Until the last week or so, diabetes is not something I would ever have worried about for myself but the recent press storm about Type 2 Diabetes has made me think again. I did a quick calculation to ascertain my BMI to find that I am just below the level where the government is considering fitting gastric bands to people who develop type 2 through being overweight. That is scary. (By-the-by, what a fantastic name that would be for a punk group, ‘The Gastric Bands’).

I completely agree with the outcry against spending NHS money on fitting gastric bands to over-weight, or as all the media call them, obese people, (so much more offensive). Their lifestyle choices include as one paper put it, “stuffing your face with junk food so that you wilfully give yourself diabetes”. But I don’t consider myself in that category, and I certainly haven’t got to the weight I am by eating junk food. God, what next? Will my bottom appear in one of those news reports where the British weight issue is being discussed and the screen is just filled with headless torsos featuring close-ups of bulges and lumps and bumps. Do you think anyone ever watches those and says, ‘hey that’s me! I’m on telly, I’d better text my mates”?

Out of interest, I Googled the journalist who had written about stuffing faces. I was expecting a mere slip of a lass but found someone who I think is a similar physique to myself and probably no stranger to the odd over-indulgent restaurant meal. I wonder if she too had examined her own BMI or whether weight only becomes an issue when it is a problem of the ‘lower classes’ and achieved through a ‘junk food’ diet?

MM

 


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