By Valerie Morton
My friend Big Fred is always at me to have a girlie night with him. We will do each other's hair and nails and watch old movies. I tell him that he's picked the wrong girl. I chew my nails and haven't had polish on them since the brush slipped trying to paint the dog's claws one Halloween.
Fred has beautiful feet and toes, which he paints in a dazzling array of colours in his own personal nail salon. At last count there were more than 150 choices. Then the real reason he is so keen to have a girls' night in suddenly dawns on me. He wants to show off all his new clothes. "I need someone to tell me what goes with what," he admits. Recently, Fred went on the world's biggest shopping spree for ladies' clothes. Chasing up large women's clothing for sale online, he ran across an intriguing advertisement.
Kate Moss not tasting.Credit: Rose Hartman
A woman who had once been a size 36 had shed a tonne and was now a size 12. She was selling her big gal wardrobe. And a lot of it was his size. Big Fred nearly broke his ankles high-tailing it to her door. She told him she'd lost the weight by taking up smoking. I wondered how she looked. "Bloody awful. About 90. She's only 50."
It got me thinking about eating. I recalled an article by Christie Brinkley's daughter on eating cookies. The perennial model had watched one day as her girl was about to hoe into one – and snatched it right out of her hand. "THIS is how you eat a cookie," she told her, putting it in her mouth, chewing it – then spitting it into the garbage. What a lousy thing to do to a perfectly good cookie. Let alone your daughter.
Kate Moss famously proclaimed that nothing tasted as good as skinny felt. She had obviously never eaten a bacon sandwich, my sister snorted. I don't know if Ms Moss eats tissues, like many women trying to remain a size zero. Cotton balls dipped in orange juice are popular too. I wonder if they give you the equivalent of fur balls. Little jars of baby food are still being spooned down by the fat phobic. Up to 16 jars a day will evidently do the trick.
Alarmingly, it is not just models who are embracing this madness. Men are weighing in on the subject. As pre-nups become more mainstream, it is becoming popular to demand a "skinny" clause. For every "ugly pound gained" there will be a financial penalty. A yearly visit to a fat farm will be mandatory as will a strict daily exercise regimen.
But not everyone desires skin and bones. I once knew a clinical psychologist whose patient weighed as much as the Titanic. And then she joined Weight Watchers. A year later she had shed the overload, was sleek and svelte and had been made poster girl of the year. To the psychologist's amazement, within a year she had put it all back on. This time they wired her jaw shut, leaving just enough room for a straw. She was determined to get back to being the little cutie.
When she failed to turn up for any appointments, he grew worried and went to her home. The door was opened by a morbidly obese man. Her husband. Her very jealous husband. Coming down the stairs, was the patient. She had a pair of wire cutters in her hand and was trying to wrench the wire from her jaw. Turned out she wasn't the problem at all. It had nothing to do with eating. The husband was making her life miserable. Convinced that she was losing weight to meet new – thin – men, he went berserk every time the scale tipped the wrong way. She needed to get back to being Mrs Fatty to keep the peace.
Years later in a California desert town, a friend and I watched an extraordinary sight in a supermarket car park. An enormous woman was having trouble squeezing herself through the car door, to the hilarity of her family who were already buckled in and ready to hit the road.
But the solution was a mere scoop away. A can of cooking lard was produced and the little kids oiled mama up as the others hooted and hollered and she rolled around laughing. Then with much shoving by the whole gang, followed by a huge sucking sound like water going down a plughole, she plopped right on into the car. No wired-up jaws or snatched cookies in that household. Just big mama and a whole lotta love and lard.
Big Fred is happy to be big. He doesn't want to be Small Fred. He loves his curves and loves that ladies' fashion caters to them. He also loves his food and is a good cook. When we have our girlie night (I have promised to rustle up some girls who love make-up) I will make sure there are plenty of cookies on hand – and I can guarantee him that not one will end up in the trash.