Telling women they’re fat isn’t a sin, it’s a lifsaver, says Miss Great Britain 2020

You’d never know to look at me now — especially wearing my sparkly tiara and the sash proclaiming me to be Miss Great Britain — but just three years ago I was classed as ‘severely obese’ with a body mass index (BMI) of 40.

How did I go from dangerously overweight to beauty queen?

Jennifer Atkin was given a scare when a nurse told her she was ‘severely obese’ three years ago, sparking her decision to turn her life around and lose around 8st

‘You are obese and really need to eat less and move more if you want to avoid getting to the point when you might need a gastric band.’

Despite weighing 18 st at just 22, it had not occurred to me until that moment that weight-loss surgery might ever have to be a consideration for me.

And, although I admit my initial reaction to the shock was to comfort-eat a bar of chocolate and a packet of crisps, the nurse’s words were a wake-up call.

They changed my life in ways I could never have imagined, setting me on a path to losing 8 st and, ultimately, being crowned Miss Great Britain 2020.

Had the nurse not been brave enough to speak up five years ago, I might now be on my way to a lifetime of health complications and even premature death.

So when I hear people call for the banning of terms such as ‘obese’, because a growing movement says they are ‘fat‑shaming’, I consider it to be dead serious — and dead wrong.

The British Psychological Society believes we should now refer to people as ‘living with obesity’, rather than ‘obese’, thereby removing any inference of personal responsibility.

Obesity is a complex condition, not merely the result of ‘eating all the pies’, as my tormentors at school used to assert.

Pretending it’s not happening, however, is not the way to tackle it. It’s ludicrous to conclude that using medical terms such as ‘obese’ is the same as nasty bullying. Far from being a term of abuse, obese is a scientific measure of a person’s weight.

When your BMI — a figure calculated by measuring weight against height — exceeds 25, you are clinically overweight, and when it reaches 30, you are classified as obese. Saying a person with a BMI of over 30 is obese is, therefore, no different to calling a table a table.

Not that all medical professionals get it right. Take the nurse who, after fitting my contraceptive implant in my early 20s, said: ‘You should lay off the biscuits.’

Her advice was not clinical, it was humiliating. I walked out with my cheeks ablaze. But if every attempt to help someone lose weight is labelled ‘fat-shaming’, then few people will ever go on a diet.

Yes, of course it’s wrong to deliberately humiliate anyone. But we are also doing a huge disservice to those whose health is at risk if we shy away from telling it like it is: only by taking in fewer calories than our bodies burn can we reverse obesity.

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A Japanese airline will no longer use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” to address its passengers, opting for more gender-neutral language instead.

From tomorrow, crew on JAL will use more inclusive greetings like “attention all passengers” and “welcome everyone” on flights and in airports.

“We aspire to be a company where we can create a positive atmosphere and treat everyone, including our customers, with respect,” Japan Airlines spokesman Mark Morimoto told the Japan Times.

“We have committed to not discriminate based on gender, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or other personal attributes.”

The change will only apply to announcements made in English as those in Japanese are already gender-neutral, AFP reported.

JAL will be the first airline in Asia to ditch gendered greetings, however it won’t be the first in the world, with easyJet and Air Canada having already made the switch.

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