Gok Wan: Too Fat Too Young
I posted this elsewhere under a pseudonym so don’t worry, I didn’t steal it and I haven’t been stolen from.
Usually, I like Gok Wan. His programme How To Look Good Naked is something I like to watch. It’s really positive and as the Wiki page says, it “never encourages participants to undergo cosmetic surgery or lose weight”. Gok is generally really positive about women’s bodies and I’ve no doubt that the programme has helped more than a few viewers. (I was interested when a US version started up last year with one of the Queer Eye guys presenting, but I haven’t seen much written about it in the fatosphere, sadly)
It’s no secret that Gok was overweight in his teens and his Wiki page says that he went on a crash diet at 20 and lost 11 stone in 9 months. There’s a couple of quotes that I want to reprint here, because I think they say a lot about Gok in general:
[It affected] everything: my personality, how people reacted to me, what I wore, everything. When you sit down with someone who’s 21 stone you have certain expectations of what they’re like: stupid, lazy or really fucking funny.
I agree with you, I really do. But what I don’t like is what you say next, mate:
I don’t regret having been fat at all. I know how to throw jokes at myself and I use humour before anything else, and those skills allow me to do the chatshows. So I’m thankful for that.
Being fat is something you should regret, is it? Oh and ha-fucking-ha, everyone knows how funny fat men are, right? RIGHT?
On to the programme. It was titled “Gok Wan: Too Fat Too Young” so given that I’m sick of the media frenzy that TEH CHILDRENZ AER GETTIN 2 FAT!!!11!! I decided to avoid it. However, the new series of Shameless started just after and I tuned in for that and caught the last five minutes or so of Gok’s show. (Also, zomg! New Shameless! Still as chaotic and funny as ever, wooo!)
The first bit I saw had Gok in a gym with lots of small children on treadmills and so on. He talked to a little girl aged 10 who told him she was trying to get fit so she wouldn’t be fat forever. She was exercising at the time. Now I don’t know about you but if someone stuck a camera in my face when I was mid-treadmill I’d politely tell them where to get off. It came across as shameless exploitation of the fact that she was out of breath and redfaced, like: “See! We told you teh childrenz should be exercising!” I’m not blaming Gok for this at all, but please.
The next bit was Gok’s round up of the show. They showed some photos of him as a teenager, and then showed him food shopping somewhere fairly upmarket. His voice over told of how he had changed his life by losing weight and, and this is where I got pissy, he said that “He had now learnt to like himself and learnt to control his eating”.
Let’s take that one part at a time. Firstly, I’d like to state again that a) not all fatties overeat and b) not all overeaters are fat. The two are not mutually exclusive. One does not equal the other.
Secondly, I’m thrilled - really - that Gok now likes himself. He’s 34, he really should. I get that his sexuality, the fact that he’s mixed race and his weight made for some tough times growing up, so if by 34 he’s learnt to like himself then all kudos to him. Some people go through their entire lives hating themselves. Everbody should like themselves, right? Self-esteem is a good thing, no? But I happen to believe that teaching kids who were only just born last millenium that there is something fundamentally wrong and disgusting about their bodies is categorically not teaching them to like themselves.
You can make kids exercise and you can do a zillion things to make everybody like themselves, but you still aren’t going to make everyone thin, and I wish the world would see that.
