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"They have bits sliced off and tied up and sucked out. I want to say to them, 'You lazy f---ing fat pig.'"

"'Just go for a run and stop eating burgers. You might fucking die.'"

Ricky Gervais opposes liposuction, tummy tucks, and gastric band operations. He also would like you to shout "Fatty!"at him when he walks down the street. Or perhaps "you fucking fat bastard," which is what he says to himself when he looks in the mirror in the morning.

He's a comedian, and that's all very funny, but he's raising some important issues. (No, not whether comedians should be more sensitive, and in any case, to the extent that it is an issue worth examining, he's already said that he's allowed to say cruelly harsh things about fat, because he's fat and admits it.)

1. Is it unethical for doctors to perform serious operation on people who have the alternative route of eating less and exercising?

2. Has the fat acceptance movement caused the obesity epidemic?

I got that link from Freeman Hunt's Twitter feed ? just as I was finishing listening to "The Ricky Gervais Guide to Medicine," which I downloaded today on iTunes.

ADDED: More on the fucking fat bastard here:

'I work out every day,' says Gervais, who recently had a swimming pool built beneath his London home and has installed a gym at his New York apartment. 'Don't sound so surprised. I'm fat because I eat too much and I'd rather not give up food. It's not glandular, it's greed. If I didn't work out I'd still eat as much but instead of being probably 20 pounds overweight, I would be 40 pounds overweight and growing.' In any case, 'I don't think a comedian should be worried about their weight'.

Has he ever been on a diet? 'No.' At some points in his life ? notably as a student, when he had little money, and had to cook for himself ? 'I didn't eat and I was thin'. But 'for the past 15 years I've eaten and I've got fat'.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 04, 2009 (boomark / email).