To the offices of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, where this specialized agency of the
United Nations, a group that has historically been more concerned with bringing crises such as famine, malaria
and Bird S.A.R.S. to the world’s attention, today launched an innovative campaign aimed at tackling the first
world blubber apocalypse that is international obesity.
In a sobering speech this lunchtime, the WHO’s President Margaret Chan (above) reminded watching nations why such schemes are vital to our planet’s future well-being. “The richest countries of the twenty-first century are also the fattest.” Mrs Chan asserted. “Immediate action is required to prevent future generations from becoming too sedentary to do anything but sit there eating crisps for five decades of their miserable existence. To that end, the World Health Organisation is working in conjunction with our 193 member states to draw up a plan aimed at encouraging children to dabble in bulimia, anorexia nervosa, and involuntary starvation from a young age. Many have already been inspired by images of stick-thin models collapsing on the catwalk, or UN ambassador Geri Halliwell, and are implementing this course of action on their own bodies right now. But Europe and North
America’s fatsos can go so much further.”
“Some will ask whether we ought not to concentrate on the millions dying of the A.I.D.S., or the
continuing African plagues of hunger and disease, but to them I say – this is the World Health
Organisation. We will not ignore our fatter citizens in their hour of need. America in particular, with its
resources stretched by the war on terror and recent troop surges, cannot afford to provide millions of
stomach-stapling operations for its individuals who most need them. Plus it’s a lot easier for us to help
first-worlders. These people may be fat, but at least they’re easily accessible and not covered in flies. And
they provide the bulk of our funding.”
The UK’s Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt welcomed the declaration, promising to ask her government for increased funds to force the message of positive eating disorders down the collective throat of our overweight teens.
“More and more, Britain is home to the morbidly obese or those who are too thin because of ‘issues’ with food.” Hewitt told the House of Commons. “Why not combine the two and instantly solve half our problems? This isn’t a catch-all cure, we’ll still have sick youngsters on our hands, but the obesity crisis gets more publicity than society’s prevalence of eating disorders, so at least the government will have tackled the ‘larger’ problem, as it were.”
Hewitt’s department have enlisted advertisers Saatchi and Saatchi to barnstorm a bold advertising
campaign featuring billboards and posters, all designed to explore the benefits of succumbing to the
‘feeding trouble’, rough drafts of which can be seen to the right. Critics have pointed out that perfectly
healthy children of average weight are as likely to be influenced by these messages as little porkers,
but the authorities’ stance remains rigid. Our leaders maintain these are desperate times, and if we
don’t want state hospitals filled with forty-stone tubs of lard come 2017, this could be the only
sensible course of action.
Home Defence spoke to Gemma Playdo, a twentysomething anorexic who forces other
holidaymakers to look away when she takes to the beach in her tiny bikini. We asked Gemma
for her opinion on the likes of a mooted TV advert, paid for by Labour, which juxtaposes images
of Jane Fonda in Barbarella (under the caption ‘bulimic’) with footage of Richard Griffiths consuming an enormous cake (‘healthy relationship with food’). The short film then asks viewers which celebrity they’d rather be or date. Playdo told us: “I think this could
be a highly effective campaign that ought to be shown during the commercial breaks of all TV cookery
programmes.” Gemma’s skeletal, emaciated frame, which looked like a sudden gust of wind would snap it in two,
then moved closer as she whispered into HDUK’s ear. “I’ve still got a little spare flesh I need to get rid of, but I’m fairly
happy with the way I look, despite the shocked gasps whenever I go out in public and the fact I stopped menstruating
years ago. I just don’t understand how fat people can look at themselves in the mirror. The way they gobble down
trifle makes me physically sick. Or maybe that’s the bulimia. Whatever, if the government can make obese people
look more like me that can only help their self-image. Could you get ready to catch me? I think I’m about to faint.”
Meanwhile on the continent, the Italian education system has chosen to act on
the WHO’s advice by sending eating disorder experts into primary schools. Once
there they will teach children how to throw up packed lunches by sticking two fingers
down their throats, and illustrate how stomachs can be made to feel full by swallowing screwed up balls
of paper dipped in warm water. Doctors, psychiatrists, and priests will also be in attendance,
germinating a phobia of large dinners in the pre-pubescent, and threatening children with hellfire if they
spend their pocket money on tuck. There will also be one-to-one sessions with a nurse to show boys
and girls how food served up by their mothers can be concealed; in pockets, the lining of clothes, or
orifices other than the mouth. These unwanted provisions will then be discreetly removed and disposed
of in private as parents are led to believe all their pasta has been consumed.
Over in America confused ex-boxer Muhammed Ali (left) is leading a similar campaign, inspiring kids as
young as eight to avoid square meals and instead devour his one-a-day ‘Greatest of All Time’ dietary milkshakes
which come in several flavours including ‘Shuffle’, ‘Jab’ and ‘Rumble’. Back in the UK,
Channel 5 has become the first TV station to jump on the eating disorder bandwagon,
recruiting celebrities with form in the area such as Natasha Kaplinsky, Richard Madeley and Myleene Klass
to host a reality show where overweight individuals are given the minimum calories necessary to survive on,
then made to live together to see what happens. Star of the early episodes promises to be one Irving
Placemat (below left), a van driver from Barnsley who was in the news recently following the downgrade of
Uranus to moon status. This left a large gap in the solar system which the British Astronomy Board filled
by reclassifying Mr. Placemat as a celestial body. Irving is now officially the ninth planet in our solar
system, and the subject of intense speculation from lunar scientists, all pondering what the atmosphere is like on his surface and whether he can support interstellar forms of life.
Placemat and six other gigantic individuals will soon be spending their days with both eyelids held
open by metal claws, watching footage of obese people expiring during liposuction, then being scolded by
acolytes of phony Doctor Gillian McKeith for producing the wrong type of turds. The programme’s creators
hope that, by the end of this show’s run, all the participants will have some form of eating disorder, and are
even willing to hypnotise the contestants into thinking cream buns taste like dog faeces if all else fails, a
move which has been greeted by the UK government and World Health Organisation with interest.
