It's a well-known fact that we worship slimness in the West and that it causes thousands of perfectly healthy women to throw themselves off skyscrapers every day because they can't live up to the male ideal of feminine beauty which, as we all know, is Karen Carpenter after she'd been through three bottles of laxatives. In Britain today any woman who goes a couple of pounds overweight is immediately a social outcast - shunned by her friends and family. It is actually literally IMPOSSIBLE to buy clothes for any woman who is bigger than a size four. Men will only have sex with women who have that Belsen chic look about them. And that, darling, is how the world really works.

"The gay men who run the fashion industry really despise women and are only happy dealing with grotesque caricatures of femininity as clubbing companions in their private lives and living skeleton walking coat-hangers in their professional lives."

The only alternative explanation is that men actually like a bit of lady lard and it's only women and gay men who worship slimness and that the gay men who run the fashion industry really despise women and are only happy dealing with grotesque caricatures of femininity as clubbing companions in their private lives and living skeleton walking coat-hangers in their professional lives. And that's obviously ridiculous.

Whatever. It seems that fat girls aren't getting the love and they need their own extra-special Fat Beauty Contest organised by plus size model Charlotte Coyle, a feisty Northern Irish flagcracker determined to make the United Kingdom respect the gunt as much as the United States does.

"Zoe, her morbidly obese friend, begs to differ and wants only the fattest of foxes"

"We are not talking about the morbidly obese, just the curvy" explains Charlotte. Zoe, her morbidly obese friend, begs to differ and wants only the fattest of foxes, thinking it something of a sell-out to include size 12-14s in the self-pity free-for-all. This issue does not go away.

During the auditions Charlotte spends her time telling a lot of fat and ugly women they are beautiful. To be fair, not all of them are ugly. And, bizarrely, not all of them are fat. Rather like the Spanish basketball players who faked their way into the Paralympics you wonder: what is the fucking point?

"The fatties who get eliminated are so mad you'd imagine somebody had just swiped a vat of Häagen-Daz from under their noses."

Yeah okay, Chanel aren't beating down your door to get your carcass down the catwalks of Milan but get a grip. Treat all this stuff about it being about curvy and healthy as flimflam. Most of these girls are fat and unhealthy. There's a particular genuinely healthy curvy woman - a gorgeous redhead with nice big arse and a concave belly. She has absolutely no business being there but she gets through to the second round.

In fact, most of the smaller women go through. The fatties who get eliminated are so mad you'd imagine somebody had just swiped a vat of Häagen-Daz from under their noses. "We don't feel represented" says one. "We feel betrayed" says another. Both of them look like shit and would struggle to place in the beauty contest that Gabby "Gaggy" Logan won. Most of the girls aren't just fat, they're ugly as well. This doesn't make them bad people. The fact that they're greedy self-pitying slobs makes them bad people. But that's not the point. Once you've accepted the totally phoney premise that fat is beautiful you may as well run with the thing.

"Fat Zoe now has a big stand-up row with Fat Charlotte (well, stand up for a while then sit back down through lack of breath and stuff her face again the loudmouth schmuck)"

Fat Zoe now has a big stand-up row with Fat Charlotte (well, stand up for a while then sit back down through lack of breath and stuff her face again the loudmouth schmuck). She's feewurious and she's got a point. If you're going to do the whole fatuous exercise then do it. Including a pretty girl with a bit of a belly defeats the object.

Filled with unintentional irony like "determined to make her beauty contest as glamourous as possible, Charlotte is on her way to Portsmouth" the whole thing seems poorly thought-out. And when the narration admits halfway through "Charlotte doesn't have a clue how to organise a plus-size beauty contest" you know that drastic measures are called for. So Charlotte flys off to America to take part in a plus-size gunt fest to see how the experts do it. Squeezing into a red evening dress she asks "Can you see that it's a bit tight?" Stevie Wonder can see that, ya mook. Aren't all creations tight on you, tubby?

"Men have been fucking, falling in love with and raising families with fat girls for aeons. Sure, it's a niche market but there's always someone willing to date the fat girl."

Reinvigorated by her US experience, Charlotte returns, runs the contest and it's a pretty good success. The girls love it and a fat posh ginger lass wins. All have prizes, Charlotte makes her point and they return to their lives of self-loathing, overeating and irritable bowel syndrome with new heart.

Men have been fucking, falling in love with and raising families with fat girls for aeons. Sure, it's a niche market but there's always someone willing to date the fat girl. Women fear the judgments of other women more than they do the judgments of men. The bottom line is obesity is foul and to celebrate it as your fellow man starves makes you a sick piece of shit.

The best thing about it: The bingeing

The worst thing about it: The whingeing

The verdict on Shape Of The Nation: Fat Beauty Contest : "A small slice of quiche, for me. Just make sure its deep-fried"

Marks out of 10: 7

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