“It’s like a prison that you just…move around in!” sobs Billy Robbins who, at 60 stone, has the dubious accolade of being the fattest teenager in the world. Your body may be a prison Fatboy, but it’s arguably a tasty prison of your own making, one in which the bars are made of sausage rolls, with walls of delicious puff pastry.
Bodyshock’s Half Ton Son is markedly different from the series’ previous efforts: Half Ton Man, Half Ton Mum and Half Ton Dad. Oh wait…No, it’s not at all different as once the fatties pass the 30 stone mark, categories such as age, race and gender are all rendered invalid as distinguishing markers of identification.
Let’s deconstruct the title of ‘Bodyshock’ here: where, precisely, is the ‘shock’ factor in the programme? We’re told that Billy’s mum (who isn’t getting asked to do Paris Fashion Week anytime soon) has been feeding him up to 8000 calories a day. This is the equivalent of eating 26.66667 Scotch eggs, all day, every day. Shocking, would be if Billy’s massive caloric intake was utilised to create a new kind of super-efficient magical fuel that would solve the world’s energy crisis. Not shocking – taking up eating as a full-time occupation makes you porky.
One of the crueller ironies I’ve noticed in documentaries on the morbidly obese is that they’re often obliged to spend a significant chunk of their screen time buck naked (it would seem clothing manufacturers have only so many Xs they can add to an L).
Admittedly, there is a certain freedom made available to fatties as lumbering around in the buff does not bring the usual host of worries it would with the majority of the population. For instance, the thought of ‘don’t want to be naked on telly, might ruin future sexual opportunities’ probably flew out the window for Billy Robbins, right after he realised finding his willy from under a vast apron of fat is much akin to a game of hide-and-seek, a game he loses all too often.
No comments:
Post a Comment