No Fat Chicks

It seems Cancer Research UK have caused a bit of a to do on social media. There's often a Twitter Storm about, but usually it's the left attacking the right for some perceived outrage, not general folk attacking the holiest of all charities, that they otherwise normally get out of bed on a Sunday morning for and run round a field while wearing pink

There's an old saying in comedy: Know your audience. It also applies when attacking certain members of society. CRUK Fell foul of that little rule with this latest advertising campaign:

Cancer Research UK has been criticised for a campaign which draws a parallel between smoking and obesity.
A year after being accused of fat shaming for a series of adverts highlighting the link between obesity and cancer, the charity’s latest billboard features a cigarette packet bearing the slogan “obesity is a cause of cancer too”.

The problem here is that the anti-smoking crusade is reaching the end of it's usefulness. There are not really any more good bits of draconian legislation to convince the Government to enact and if they can't be seen to be doing something, there's no point giving them taxpayers cash

Us smokers have been saying for a long time that the gravy train will move onto alcohol and food and it's already making great headway doing just that

The problem is, it's not yet gone far enough. If you come up with a plan to further marginalise smokers, the public will get behind it, because for many years they have been taught that smokers are just smelly, disgusting addicts

You try to fat shame people though, you get called on it

“Weight stigma is rife across society – the research detailing weight stigma in healthcare, media etc shows us that blaming individuals for a situation that is complex leads to worse outcomes, not better. It creates a bigger problem.”

Have you noticed how all tobacco advertising has been banned, all alcohol advertising comes with a plea to 'Drink Responsibly', but all clothes advertising comes with a bunch of fat women shaking their curves and having a whale (pun intended) of a time, while being told, "you go girl!"

Fat people are still righteous. Fat folk are not targets for derision like smokers are. You can't fat shame people because it's not the done thing. At least not yet. One day it will be perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to approach fat people in public and tell them they are disgusting, unsightly addicts who should be banned from polite society. In a few years time, Jeremy Vine will be Tweeting about not being able to sit on a bench in a pub garden because the lard arses are taking up all the space

Fat folk will eventually be worn down like us smokers, but for now, they're off limits

Last February, comedian and body positive campaigner Sofie Hagen criticised an advert from the charity that highlighted obesity as the leading preventable cause of cancer after smoking, calling it “incredibly damaging”.

14,000 Pubs down the swanny, I would say the smoking ban has been incredibly damaging, but we're not allowed to complain about that

The CRUKs campaign against obesity is going to be based on the same type of junk that has been the bedrock of all anti-smoking campaigns and probably waged by the same groups, Fat people and 'Body Positive Campaigners' need to see this for what it really is, because we should all be on the same side, but for now:

Fiona Quigly, who is researching weight-related communication in healthcare, said on Twitter: “Smoking is not given by genetics, your body doesn’t adapt to force you to smoke more, you don’t get discriminated against because you smoke

And there is the problem; a fat fighter thinks that smokers don't get discriminated against
You can eat food in a restaurant, but you can't smoke
You can eat food in a pub, but you can't smoke
You can eat food in a beer garden in the sun and nobody is holding Twitter polls to see if it should be banned
You can eat in a plane, on a train or in the car with children present
Tax on most foods is zero rated, yet most of the cost of a packet of cigarettes is duty
Tobacco advertising is banned, yet fat bodies are flaunted in commercial breaks
You can be fat wherever you want to and nobody tells you to leave

I could go on. Smokers are the most actively discriminated members of society and that discrimination is actively encouraged by the people in power and their charity monkeys, on a daily basis

You don't get more discriminated against than a smoker

Fat people have it coming too. I'm interested to see how this plays out

Frank Davis also has a gripe at this story