Super Sized Terror

Following the UK Chief Medical Officer’s announcement that obesity in women now represents as grave a threat to the country as Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, the Metropolitan Police, its resources already stretched to the limit by the ‘war on terror’, announced its emergency anti-obesity measures. “We’ll be deploying specialist mobile squads of officers to target those women who are on the cusp of moving from merely ‘well built’ or ‘chubby’ to full blown obese,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hugh Jass told a packed press conference at Scotland Yard. “As soon as one of these women is seen out in public, about to consume a fatty food which might push them past the obesity tipping point, these specially trained officers will rush to the scene and knock the cream cakes, chips or kebabs from their hands. Obviously, such operations will be highly dangerous – those super sized terrorists are likely to be so ravenous that they’ll try to take a bite out of the arresting police officers – which is why all personnel assigned to these operations will be issued with full body armour and tasers.” With resources so thinly stretched as they attempt to simultaneously fight wars against both terror and fat, the Metropolitan Police admit that they will be heavily reliant upon the public in their fight against flabby women.

“We’ll be calling upon ordinary citizens to keep their eyes open for any potentially obese women and alert us via our special ‘Fat Phone’ line,” Jass informed the press. “So, if you happen to peering through your chubby neighbour’s window and see her about to tuck into a Mars Bar, gives us a call and the rapid response unit will attend as quickly as possible. Of course, all tips of this kind will be treated with complete confidentiality and the anonymity of informants respected.” In order to aid potential informants, the Department of Health is to issue a handy visual guide to women’s body shapes. “It will be a bit like those aircraft identification guides they used to distribute during the war so that observers could tell the difference between a Spitfire and a Heinkel,” explained the top cop to the assembled reporters. “It will feature both silhouette and front and back views of a variety of possible female body shapes, with a healthy, slim full breasted one as the base. All people have to do is compare any suspect women they see with the chart to ascertain the level of risk they represent and whether they might escalate to a higher threat level if they stuff another bag of crisps into their face.” The Health Department has already been heavily criticised by health professionals for its identification guides, advance copies of which have been sent out to doctors. “Their system of classification, running from ‘well fit’ through to ‘fat slag’, taking in ‘well built’, ‘big boned’ and ‘gross wobble bottom’, amongst others, along the way, is both unscientific and demeaning to women,” Dr Peter Wick of the British Medical Association (BMA) told the Sunday Bystander. “As for its suggestion that observers should try slapping fatty areas of suspect women and measuring how long it took to stop rippling and wobbling in order to gauge the level of their obesity – there is no medical basis whatsoever for such a test! The fact is that there are a wide variety of body shapes for both men and women which could be considered healthy – and breast size has nothing whatsoever to do with it!”

In the face of such criticisms, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jass was keen to emphasise that the fat woman spotting guide and its direct intervention ‘fat squad’ were only one part of their anti-obesity strategy. “We’re also looking to strike directly at the sources of obesity,” he assured the press conference. “Even as I speak, we have teams of armed officers raiding confectioners, cake shops and kebab vans throughout London. These might appear to be respectable businesses, but they are actually obesity enablers – without them, this threat to our way of life couldn’t thrive.” Indeed, the main thrust of the police’s strategy, as outlined by Jass, will be to crack down on those actually ‘fattening’ women to the point of obesity. “These women don’t start out obese – they might be a bit on the chunky side, but the fact is that they are induced into becoming grossly overweight. It’s the same as Muslims – they are perfectly harmless until some crazy Jihadi radicalises them and they start blowing themselves up,” he claimed. “Just as these mad Mullahs are going around radicalising innocent Muslims, so we believe that there are sinister ‘fatteners’ – probably linked to international terror groups – going around targeting vulnerable women, encouraging them to over eat.”

Consequently, the top cop is calling upon the public to be vigilant for evidence of suspicious, possibly Arabic-looking, individuals feeding women fatty foods. They should be especially concerned if the women in question are emotionally vulnerable or disaffected. “They could just have suffered a painful relationship break up, or found that they can no longer fit in their old dress size,” he explained. “Under such circumstances, their natural instinct to comfort eat could easily be subverted by these radical ‘fatteners’, resulting in dangerous obesity.” Intelligence about the fatteners will be combined with footage from surveillance cameras and drones in order to combat the threat that they pose. “There will be no hiding place for them,” Jass declared. “If a foreign-looking bloke offers a fat bird in a scummy Lewisham flat a chocolate eclair – we’ll see it!” Critics remain unimpressed, with medical professionals questioning the whole basis of the anti-obesity crusade. “The government still hasn’t properly explained why it is only obesity in women which is dangerous,” the BMA’s Dr Wick pointed out. “Not only that, but they haven’t adequately explained how it poses a threat greater than terrorism.”

One of the medical researchers behind the original report referenced by the government’s Chief Medical Officer responded to such criticisms in an interview with Channel Four News. “The direct threat these fat birds pose is obvious – the increased strain on the National Health Service will inevitably destroy it,” Professor Brian Yostler told presenter Jon Snow. “Not only that, but think of the damage they do to the UK’s infrastructure: the public toilets they break, the lifts and escalators they damage. Then there’s the social costs – do you really want to find yourself crushed into, say, a tube train with all these gargantuan, wobbling piles of flesh, with their flatulence?” The professor – who obtained his medical qualifications from an online ‘university’ – also addressed the issue of why only female obesity constituted a grave threat to Britain’s security. “It’s a question of morale, isn’t it? Seeing fit birds turn fat and ugly – that’s enough to demoralise the male population. It’s bound to affect birth rates – I mean, what self-respecting bloke wants to shag some horrible fat bird? Already all those bloody immigrants are out-breeding us – mond you, they make their fat birds wear those bloody hijabs, or whatever they call them, so they can’t see how ugly they are when they pork them. Maybe we should try that,” Yostler opined, as he casually scratched his genitals. “As for why male obesity isn’t a threat – that’s obvious: in blokes a bit of a pot belly is traditionally a sign of masculinity and virility. It’s evidence of male bonding in the pub and the ability to consume large quantities of alcohol without ill-effect. Conversely, in women it is a clear sign of idleness and slovenliness.”