As one of the things I do for a crust, I’ve had to question some statistics lately.
Big, brassy, blowsy statistics like “17 million Australians are overweight or obese”, as stated by the Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute (MODI) web page.
It’s a rigorous scientific process. “Darl,” says I to the partner-in-time, “that figure sounds very high. That’s like . . . 75 per cent of people. Whaddayathink?”
“Well”, says he, “think about the people you know.”
Mentally I applied a pinch test to the first 50 people who came to mind and the results were alarming.
Now, I did not include work colleagues. No siree! Because applying imaginary skinfold calipers to virtual workmates could generate an HR complaint.
So excluding workmates — and the Russell family of West Footscray, who will be reading this — only two people passed the pinch test.
There you have it: 17 million Australian people, including 96 per cent of those known to Sarah Harris are carrying too much pud.
But somehow it still niggled, so I went back to the source.
“14 million Australians are overweight or obese” read the MODI web page.
What! I put my hands over my eyes and peeked through my fingers. But it was still there in black and white. Was I going mad?
I had to ring them up. What happened to the three million, I cried? “Oh”, said Daphne, “I’m really not sure where that 17 million figure came from, so I changed it using World Health Organisation stats.”
And that, people, is the true story of how three million fat Australians vanished overnight.
You could say it’s a big weight off the mind.
