Fat. Obese. Who cares? We're too obsessed by size

This article was published in The Observer 1 August 2010

When neo-puritans imply that slimness equates to virtue, we're on dangerous ground.

Obese. As a euphemism, it is useless. That big round "o" and that sibilant "s" – just the sound of it makes me think of the fat kid at school who would slyly pinch your arm when no one was looking.

Health minister Anne Milton dislikes the O-word too: she set off a row last week by saying doctors should stop using it and instead tell people they are plain "fat", to encourage them to take responsibility for their love handles. The prevalent view of health professionals is that calling people fat is insulting, and that using the term "obese" is less of a stigma. I'm not sure about that: obese, to me, suggests more than being just fat, it suggests gargantuan, grotesque, can't-heave-yourself-onto-a-bar-stool-without-breaking-it fat. People are not said to be obese and jolly, or obese with such a pretty face; they are clinically, or morbidly obese.

Semantics aside, there is no point trying to be euphemistic about fatness anyway, because nobody is taken in.