Zola’s ‘The Fat and the Thin’ a prophecy?

We live in a world of seemingly unfair contrasts. While part is peopled with chubby, obese well-fed and overfed humans who moan if their burger has been made with the wrong special sauce, there are still many places where thin is not just beautiful but an imposed necessity. These people have nothing to eat.

I recently re-read the Zola book “The Fat and the Thin” which tells the tale of a family feud between some members who are ‘successes’ and another who is a ‘failure’. When I first read the book (I was a child) I was shocked that a writer would be so cruel as to divide the world that way. But now it seems to be a reality. Some people have an inherent greed and as their benefits have to come from somewhere, they appear to suck the life-force out of others.

Why? How can famine and hunger exist in a world that has all the scientific answers?
How can obesity and greed now be given the status of an illness, an accident without cause or blame?

Since spending so much time in Mexico, I have observed the hefty body shapes of people on the North American continent who seem to have turned the art of greed into a virtue.

I have a new list of 7 deadly sins:

1. Thou shalt not sit: Sitting for hours on end is deadly. So you think you MUST sit at that desk? No you don’t. Pick up the phone and walk around while you are chatting. Put a treadmill in your office and have it modified with a desk arrangement the way the employees have at Zappos. The average civilized human sits for more than six hours a day NOT including work time. That would explain the massive rear ends of the world.
2. Thou shalt not pig out: Second helpings are deadly. Allocate enough to cover a smallish plate and don’t try to flatter your hostess by agreeing to eat seconds.
3. Thou shalt not live in a bubble: Switching off to the plight of the rest of the world is deadly. You can do something even if it is just a heifer.org chicken
   donation or Kiva loan!
4. Thou shalt not give power to idiots: Voting for simplistic idiots is deadly. The world is not black and white. Save your vote for a politician with a brain,
   for someone who understands the domino effect of every decision made by a government. Yes, I know the last of those was Barry Jones. Hard to find, eh? Well, stand for local government and start changing things from the bottom up.
5. Thou shalt not ignore your family: a functioning family that lives, loves and communicates spreads its example throughout the world. So does the
   dysfunctional and that example spreads tribally, statewide, nationwide and empire wide to destroy the lives of others. If you are a parent, bring your
   children up straight with care, attention and the ability to think and analyse the world around us. Put in the TIME. This is a better gift than a Playstation.
6. Thou shalt not support exploitation of any race, age-group or minority. Don’t buy that woven carpet or coffee made by slavery. Look for the Fairtrade
   label and cough up the extra couple of dollars that will eventually eradicate exploitation.
7. Thou shalt not let fashion rule your basic need. Don’t continually change your wardrobe, décor, electronics or car. Let things wear out before you replace them (having maintained them as long as you possibly can).

Some people will have you believe that only through consumerism and inflation can the economy be restored. But really, who wants that economy, where houses are artificially highly priced, where crops and food supplies are manipulated to push up prices, where buying locally and seasonally is seen as somehow not acceptable and so we pay megabucks for imported white asparagus from France even though we live thousands of miles away. I think by now you have got the picture.

If you are guilty of any of these 7 Deadly Sins, you can make amends and do penance by trawling through some of mygreenaustralia.com’s back issues and learning how to make the world more ‘equal’ through your own intelligent actions and the sweat of your brow (which of course, burns calories and will keep you thin!).