Free Leith, William by The Hungry Years

what I said about the obese person's shuffle? Well, I'm walking behind an obese person now. A woman. I'm
    walking slowly, but she's at crawling pace. She must weigh 300 lbs. The pyramid of her trunk sits uneasily on her hips, which are joined to splayed, bulky legs. As she walks, she rotates slightly from a central axis, hammering pain and destruction downwards on her ankles, knees, hips, and lumbar region. Her arms stick out sideways from her body because of the large pannier-sized bulges on the outside of her ribs. Large veinless puffy hands with dimpled knuckles swing outwards, high and free, pushed upwards by the buttress of the woman's excess flesh, almost as if she's waving at the people she's walking past.
    But she's not waving.
    And people, in general, do not seem happy to see this woman. Fat or thin, we are not happy to see obese people in public. Just ask an obese person. As this woman walks along, people narrow their eyes or rotate their heads a few degrees away from her. 'Yuck!'That's what they're saying. And: 'Ugh!'
    And: 'Jesus.'
    And: 'God, don't let me get like that!'
    And: 'Poor soul.'
    Two slim, younger guys catch each other's eye, and their cheeks plump up, their eyes flash. This is: 'Whoo!' This is: `Catch that, Dude!' A couple of people walk past, staring straight ahead. This is: 'I really don't want to go there.'
    Looking at people, you can well imagine the stuff that's passing through their minds. Like, 'How did she get like that?'
    And: 'I wonder what it would be like to . .
    And: 'If I could talk to her, just for an hour, I could really help her.'
    And how do I feel, looking at this woman? Oh, I hate her. I hate myself for hating her, but like I said, I'm fattist. I hate her because she reminds me that I am fat, that I'm a bit like her. But I think I hate her also because she tells me something about the world. She tells me that we live in a fat world. She tells me that we, the human race, are out of control. She takes away a little bit of my hope.
    And look at her clothes. For a start, they are frumpy. Seeing this gives me a small frisson of horrified recognition. She's fat, so she is signalling, in a humble sort of way, her very humility. She's saying: I'm not the sort of fat person who is pretending to think I'm good-looking. She's wearing trainers, but not spiffy, bright, fashionable trainers. These are grey. They look like grandma's shoes; they look like they might smell of house-dust and cats and out-of-date cooking oil. She didn't have to choose these grey trainers. Mind you, her hand has been forced somewhat when it comes to her outer layers. Here, she has very definitely Gone Floaty, and wears a swaddling of greys and browns, a sort of protective cladding. She looks like a nomad's yurt that has been ripped from its moorings in a storm.
    I'll bet she has an expanding waistband on her trousers. Until recently, expanding waistbands have been associated mainly with children's clothes (because children grow), sporting clothes (they need to be flexible), bedwear (must be comfortable) and underwear (too flimsy to rely on fasteners, must not fall off). But now, expanding waistbands are entering the mainstream. Like children, adults are expected to grow.
    And expanding waistbands are a dangerous thing. As Greg
    Critser points out, research conducted by John Garrow, a British scientist, suggests that tight waistbands inhibit overeating. Garrow investigated a group of formerly obese patients who had lost weight on a calorie-controlled diet. This was a radical calorie-controlled diet: the patients had had their jaws wired. When the wires were removed, Garrow fitted half the patients with cords around their waists. The cords were tight enough to make a white line in the flesh when the patient was seated. The difference in weight gain between the waistband group and the non-waistband group, Garrow found, was 'striking'. Those without cords gained weight at a much faster rate. And this leads Critser to an