Are fat people fat because they’re greedy – gluttony being one of the Seven Deadly Sins – or are they fat because of their genes? And are slender people in shape because they were lucky enough to be born that way?
Science, it seems, is increasingly coming down on the side of genes. A new study from the University of Cambridge tells us that “the key to staying slim is skinny genes. Slim people have a genetic advantage when it comes to maintaining weight.”
We have all known individuals who could stuff their faces with chocolate eclairs all day long and still retain their beanpole shape, while others among us struggle daily with the conflict between gluttony and self-control (or, alternatively, greed and vanity).
So it’s plausible when Professor Sadaf Farooqi says that “this research shows for the first time that healthy thin people are generally thin because they have a lower burden of genes that increase a person’s chances of being overweight.” She also warns the slim against imagining themselves morally superior to fatties. Their shape is not a virtue, but an inheritance.
Yet taken too literally, this report could be seen as another nail in the coffin of free will and self-control – “self-mastery” being a virtue extolled by the ancients. If our persons are dictated by the lottery of our genes, then we have no responsibility for our decisions. Free will is replaced by passive fatalism.
Fortunately, there are physicians and researchers who see a middle way. Since the obesity level of the general population has increased in nearly all developed societies in recent decades – 62 per cent of people in England are now clinically overweight – it follows that more people have been eating more, exercising less, and sitting around on the sofa scoffing cream buns.
I well recall visiting communist Albania in the 1980s, where private cars were banned (except for party officials). Everyone walked everywhere and manual labour was the norm. And everyone was slim – except for party officials.
We have, surely, genetic dispositions towards the shape we inhabit. But that’s not the whole story, and free will and the choices, good or bad, that we make are relevant. Gluttony clearly remains culpable.
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Mary Queen of Scots is a significant movie in terms of religious history, since the plot is based on the story of Catholic Mary Stuart in opposition to Protestant Elizabeth Tudor. The film’s sympathies are broadly with Mary.
Directed by the feminist Josie Rourke, there’s also a suggestion that these women were proto-feminists pitted against phalanxes of controlling menfolk: if Mary and Elizabeth had been left to sort things out between themselves, perhaps sisterly solidarity might have overcome their political differences.
Consequently, Elizabeth, played by the Australian actress Margot Robbie, is portrayed as an anguished woman just trying to do her best, à la Theresa May. Actually, Elizabeth I was one tough cookie who imprisoned Mary for 20 years (before executing her) largely because Catholic Mary had a legitimate – probably superior – claim to her throne.
In truth, this historical struggle was not about gender; it was about dynasty. There were plenty of powerful women in Britain and Europe in the 1500s and they exercised power through dynastic links. Although the point is made that Elizabeth’s childlessness imperilled her dynastic position, and Mary’s having borne a son gave her some leverage, but also made her more of a threat to Elizabeth.
Saoirse Ronan, who plays Mary, has a facial luminosity which lights up the screen, and David Tennant, as the misogynistic preacher John Knox, is compelling – he coined the phrase about the “Monstrous Regiment of Women”.
The movie doesn’t quite hang together, however. It’s bitty and lacks dramatic continuity. But it’s beautiful to look at, with wild Scottish scenery, and exquisite attention to costume.
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Last week, I suggested that it would be a Christian gesture for 97-year-old Prince Philip to apologise to the woman into whose vehicle he crashed in Norfolk recently. It’s nice to note that Philip has graciously done the Christian thing, and the recipient of his letter of apology is really “chuffed”. Kind gestures are not only graceful, but also mollifying: “a soft answer turneth away wrath”.
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