I am feeling gobsmacked after reading an article from The Weekend Australian (yes, I am catching up on Tuesday - it’s a high-tech life for me) which talked about Barack Obama’s weight - or lack of it - as a political liability. Apparently “normal” people don’t trust those with no body fat.

Quotes like “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy” and “I mean, who quits smoking and doesn’t gain any weight?” are astounding.  I’m not able to fully articulate my thoughts on this yet, but there are so many connections which need to be made here:

• our women can’t be thin enough, yet thin men aren’t strong enough to lead
• the questionable masculinity of thin men and the unspoken inverse of this - the questionable femininity of big women
• the elitism associated with choosing clean and healthy food
• the unregulated (read: cheap) access to crap food which excludes so many from clean and healthy food
• the intertwining of identity with food choices beyond cultural attachments…

And I don’t even know where to start with the odious racial undertones implicit in the article. Or the presumptive nature of repeatedly mentioning of Obama’s protein bar snacks. 

I can’t find a URL for the version I read - the original article is from The Wall St Journal, or you can pick your favourite version here. 

And the ever-reliable Slate has a great article about this which is far more eloquent than mine. 

(ed. note - aka note to self: should this “intertwining” be “intertwingling”? this is the interwebs after all)