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James Corden, late-night host viral moment during the weekend when he applauds back to Bill Maher for his comments on fat. "If mocking fat people made them lose weight, there would not be big kids in schools," Corden said. "And I'll have a six pack now."
Well James, I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. Fat-shaming can work. And I know. Because I already made a mistake for you.
I was leaving an extremely crowded billiard room in the West Village of Manhattan with friends on a Saturday in early December of last year. It was the kind of place where you had to pick up a ticket from the bar so you could wait for your turn for a table – and it was already an hour that we were waiting. I was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt that my father had bequeathed and which was decorated with small parrots, jeans, adidas sneakers, light locks and the same haircut as I always have: short on the back and on the sides, longer and more back and right with gel on the top. At the time of our departure, I thought it would be nice to give our tickets to someone waiting in the queue to enter.
I approached a man at the front. "Excuse me, my friend, I do not suppose you"
"Oh my God, James Corden ?!"
My jaw dropped. I'm not a violent man – I had never been in a fight before – but it was so close that I was done punching in anger.
Perhaps feeling this, he apologized very quickly and took the tickets, thanking me for them.
As I moved away, the rage subsided and was replaced by a wave of embarrassment. In thinking about it, James Corden and I have a lot in common. We both moved to America in 2015. We both have southern accents from England and sing in the car. None of us are particularly funny. But this casual comparison of a stranger really hurt me. It was more than the shirt, the hair and the accent … was I … big?
After my university studies in England, I had not really taken care of my body. I ate more often than not, I had stopped going to the gym and I drank a lot two or three times a week. This comparison with Corden was my damascene moment: I went to the gym for the first time in three years the following week.
But why focus on why people change their behavior when you can be obsessed with keeping them in their comfort zone? Bill Maher angered Corden by closing his September 6 broadcast with a monologue on the US obesity crisis, full of jokes:
"In August, 53 Americans died from massive gunfire. Terrible, no? You know how many have died from obesity? 40 000. It is not necessary to put an end to shame, we must go backwards. A certain amount of shame is good. We shame the people who do not smoke and wear the seatbelt, we make them ashamed of the garbage, and most of them, racism. Shame is the first step of reform, which makes people say "maybe I can do better", as opposed to "I'm always perfect as I am, how dare you!""
In response, Corden published the kind of semi-serious and semi-comic clip that his fellow British and rival Emmy, John Oliver, made his mark on – although, paradoxically, the format was probably put developed by Maher.
This segment, like that of Maher, has brought to light the crisis of obesity. And, like Maher, he was also divided into big jokes … but of course, Bill Maher's "harassment" is James Corden's "self-destructive".
By dissociating Maher's comments from their context and offering his "gentleman's plus size title," James Corden praised the "blogosphere" for his "epic return." "People are applauding", BuzzFeed shouted. Corden "brilliantly humiliated" Maher, according to Deadline.
Maybe there are a lot of overweight people for whom getting fat is a hindrance rather than a help. James Corden has every right to profit from his fight to become his leader, in exchange for some glowing shots and a few million views on YouTube. But often, when we look at the body image, we tend to judge the whole thing in terms of the extremes: most of us occupy the space between bulimia and l '. ;morbid obesity. We focus particularly on the poles when we think of causality, between the words of a slender Californian comic like Bill Maher and the behavior of chronic fat.
After the brief shock of Corden's contrast, I found my habits again. Maybe this guy just wanted to say the accent or the shirt, I thought. Back in the UK for Christmas, I received additional clarifications. I went to the local pub with my best friend from high school. We met at the bar, bought some beer, and then retired to the smoking area. We sat one in front of the other and my friend looked me up and down.
"So … you got fat!", He said jovially.
He was right. So I did something about it. There is your causality.
In January, I joined the gym in my neighborhood, a five-minute walk from the Brooklyn apartment where I live and work. I started participating in sessions of half an hour three or four times a week, where I ran on a treadmill for 10 minutes, and then I worked every day with a different muscle group. As the sweat flowed from my forehead and my sneakers beat the track, the singular thought pushed me: "You are not James Corden".
Monsters of health often explain how their training makes them feel better. When it comes to to be really in the gymI'm pretty sure they're lying … but I can see what they mean. The exercise is however only half of the picture: to progress, I also had to revise my diet.
I did a little research online before adapting to the Paleo diet, also called "diet that will allow me to eat meat". I cut soft drinks, most sugars and almost all carbohydrates (except alcohol, I'm not an animal). Each morning breakfast consisted of bacon, eggs and black coffee. The meat I had at each dinner was accompanied by carrot sticks and humus. This basic self-control application began to produce results in a few weeks.
After six months, I had lost 25 pounds, from 210 before Christmas to 185 Memorial Day weekend. The gray suit that I bought in September is no longer strapless and, although I will not haunt your screens with photos of me shirtless (sorry, Toby Young fans), rest assured, I'm much leaner than in front of the pool nine months ago. Sometimes I cheat, of course – who else will try to claim the McDonald's family discount – but in general I have stayed true to my exercise regime and my diet.
Thank you James Corden, I could not have done it without you.
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