You Fat Bastard! You Fat Bastard!

Ah, happy days listening to "Sheriff Fatman" by Carter USM. And a chant quite often sang directly at me when I was DJing. Although seeing the size of some people on the streets these days, I don't feel quite as fat as I once did. It's almost like I was ahead of the game and society has not only caught up with me, but is racing ahead.

There's recently been a report suggesting being fat is "not the fault of the individual" but was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife. Being thin, it surmised, was a "surprise".

So you can imagine my own surprise when the Nanny^W Government decided to issue reports to any parent whose child was overweight. Because you know what'll happen next, parents will be fined. For something that's apparently not their fault. Although really, it is.

Now, I can see that the over-feeding/under-exercising of children by their parents can be tantamount to a form of child abuse. I'm not sure that fining the parents - who are probably on the lowest income and education levels and truly believe a McDonald's Children's Meal represents a nutritionally balanced value-for-money diet - is actually the way forward.

More can be achieved - in my opinion - by the introduction of free school meals, as has been muted for Scotland. Obviously they would need to be force fed to some of the kids, and I'm sure some of the parents would still try to pass bags of chips through the fence, but for me, that's the way forward.

Kids go to school - in theory anyway - to learn things. If learning what to eat in order to not get obese doesn't happen at home, then surely it should be taught in school? I'm not one for shoving more responsibilities onto teachers - I think parents should be the ones teaching moral guidance etc, but frankly take a look around you, it ain't going to happen - but bring back compulsory Home Economics lessons!