Are we too polite in our terms for being overweight?

[R1Geezer]

Do you agree with the minister?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10789553
Now as someone who can put on half a stone smelling a bacon sandwich, I'm not suggesting we got out and verbally abuse fat people but I do think that we are too twee and nice with our terminology and I think the blunt term "fat" may well motivate.

[ttfn]

Heaven forbid Star!

Mamya - aint that the truth <<winks>>

[joko]

if i refer to someone as fat it is just a statment of fact, not an insult

the word fat is not an insult in itself...if you take it as such thats your problem...but it is not slang or an insult but a condition

[Androcles]

Joko said " if i refer to someone as fat it is just a statment of fact, not an insult

the word fat is not an insult in itself...if you take it as such thats your problem...but it is not slang or an insult but a condition "

But how about "if i refer to someone as stupid it is just a statment of fact, not an insult

the word stupid is not an insult in itself...if you take it as such thats your problem...but it is not slang or an insult but a condition"

Is that likely to work?

[DTCwordfan]

How about 'huge'

My youngest then 4 saw a picture of the world's fattest man as her elder sister was looking at the Guinness Book of Records.

Next day she was with me having coffee with a group of friends - one of them is way, way, overweight. Out she comes, "Mr Brown, you are huge, nearly as fat as the heaviest man in the world. I have seen him."

He took it in good spirits.......

[woofgang]

lol, Androcles, well said

[joko]

but calling someone stupid is an insult...as it is an opinion...not fact....it is not a condition or medical term...its used as a slang term insult

fat people are undeniably fat....opinion is irrelevant

you're rather missing the point here

[cazzz1975]

I clean myself with a rag on a stick

[joko]

the substance we eat is called...fat.

the stuff inside our bodies that sticks to our hips and makes up our wobbly bits is called...fat

the word has been kind of hijacked and seen as offensive - by some people...but that doesnt make it a bad or incorrect word...

[Sqad]

Androcles......LOL

"Stupid" is a matter of opinion
"Fat" is a matter of fact.

[cazzz1975]

I agree with joko, fat is just a descriptive, like thin, tall, short, hairy, bald

[woofgang]

spastic, mongol, and actually idiot all used to be objective clinical descriptions....as did "poxed"; but today if I called someone in an std clinic "poxed" there would be all hell to pay, the same as if I called someone with a learning difficulty an "idiot"

What I am objecting to is not the word per se but the suggestion that we are "too nice" to fat people and that they might respond better to blunter speaking thus taking a burden off the NHS...my suggestion is that if this is, in fact, true, then lets stop being "too nice" to drug and alcohol abusers, to people who present at a and E with sports injuries and to people who have huge families without any way of supporting them. And lets be REALLY honest to the weekend binge drinkers!!

[Sqad]

woofgang....exactly.

[woofgang]

sqad i know you get it....getting through to joko seems to be a bit more challenging though!

[joko]

woofgang...you do not have to get anything through to me...i do not need your 'explanations'...please do not attempt to patronise me

i know what you are saying, and i know what the others are saying...but it seems, as you say yourself, your objection seems to have nothing to do with what i said...i have not even commented on the notion that we are too nice to fat people etc...my comment was solely on the word itself...and its meaning...and you will see that sqad actually agrees with me on that...

it is you that seems unable to see the word as anything other than an insult...
an insult lies in the intention behind it, not the word itself...i see it as a substance and a condition of the body... and i see it that way then many others must do too.
there are very few terms to describe being fat that will not offend someone...because it is a sensitive issue
and i undertsand that many people would be upset to be called fat...but then if they are fat they are fat, words wont change that...and really the word should be reclaimed into meaning what it actually means...
i certainly would be more offended at being called morbidly obese rather than fat...

(i am neither by the way)

[woofgang]

with respect joko, if you aren't fat, then I don't think its reasonable for you to have a view on whether the word is offensive or not. If I said as a white person that I don't find certain words that used to be used about black people are offensive, and if they take them as such then that is their problem, you'd think I was at very least being unreasonable.

[joko]

i didnt say it wasnt offensive to SOME people - it clearly is...the point is it has become offensive because of how it is used, the intention behind saying it...in an insulting manner...and it shouldnt be...because the word itself it not meant to be an insult

i am not fat but i do have a bit of a fat tum...and i say fat tum because thats what it is ...a layer of fat over my stomach...not an obese tummy, or an overweight tum, or a pleasantly plump tum...its fat...

same as the bits of cellulite on my bum is made of fat...nothing else..

its just one of those things really, in the same way perhaps other words are hijacked and develop new connotations...

saying someone is fat should be able to be said in a general conversation, but calling someone a fatty, or fatso is an insult - as its slang

[woofgang]

"The word fat is not an insult in itself...if you take it as such thats your problem"

the word "poxed" is also a statement of fact, albeit an old fashioned one.

[joko]

well i have yet to hear of someone being offended by being told they have chicken pox or small pox...doctors can still use the word pox on their notes

and who ever calls any one poxed? even as an insult? its may happen but its hardly a common term or used as a slang insult is it...?

[woofgang]

it used to be the correct clinical term for someone with Syphillis

[joko]

aye and if i had syphilis and someone referred to it as pox then i wouldnt care...but its unlikely anyone would say that really isnt it

id have more important things to worry about any way than a word haha