Am I a sad git or what?
Anyway, as always Ms McKeith didn’t disappoint…
The thing with Gillian is… she might do health food. She might do dieting. She might do nutrition. But she sure as hell doesn’t do people. Not unless it’s to do over somebody’s already crumbling self-esteem that is.
Gillian’s emotional blitzkrieg approach gets my goat right on it’s belligerently hairy nelly. I honestly think she is rude, nasty and bitchy for the sheer hell of it. “Being cruel to be kind” is really no kind of excuse at all. Not when you are attacking someone on such a personal level in front of the entire nation. There is no need for it. It is unjustifiable. I bet Gok Wan pulls out his carefully dyed two-tone hair in absolute horror at Gillian’s Cruella antics.
I know that at the end of the day these women have agreed to appear on the programme but I’m sure a lot of their willingness to be televised is down to transient gratitude and inordinate relief when, at the end of Gillian’s 8-week regime, they find they are at last 2 stone and (more importantly) one sabre-toothed Scottish battleaxe lighter. When Gillian disappears back up her drainpipe they must all cheer and break out the stotty cakes in celebration. Awful woman!
She dares to tell them off for not loving themselves enough right after she’s landed the mother of all guilt trips upon them! I need her to see the full horror of what she’s doing to herself, says Gillian, as she presents one of the women with a coffin freshly engraved with her name. Into this she pours trifles, take-away curries and a host of other victual-based crimes that the poor woman has committed. How classy. Next she’s presenting the terrified women with beautifully wrapped mock wedding presents which, when opened, turn out to be diseased livers and clotted up hearts, etc… manky offal fresh from the butcher’s shop. Cue much heaving and gagging. But it’s all for their own good of course…
Surely there are better ways of getting someone to change their way of life than by scaring them and brow beating them into it? Gillian plainly sees herself as a God and these poor overweight women as her unworthy acolytes with which she may do anything in order to achieve the end result. What I see is a megalomaniacal dictator stomping over everybody’s feelings just to score points and ensure that her programme achieves its only selling point…
Weight loss.
Pure and simple.
It’s not about the women accepting themselves or undergoing counselling to deal with the issues that have possibly lead to their unhealthy eating. The goal is weight loss. Nothing more nothing less. Oh look. They’ve all lost 5 inches from their waists in a mere 8 weeks. Job done. Mission achieved. And off Gillian trots like one of those freaky automatons from Bladerunner… onto the next fat target that needs taking down a peg or two as well as a dress size.
What annoys me most about Gillian’s programmes is that the over weight people featured on them stand no chance whatsoever. They’re set up to look fat, gormless, contemptible and infantile. Last night saw three overweight brides-in-waiting struggling to get into wedding dresses that were deliberately chosen to be too small for them. Of course they looked awful. They looked dreadful and were naturally mortified. But if I tried to get into an outfit three sizes too small for me I’d look pretty horrible too! As my wife, Karen, pointed out: if these women had been put into dresses that actually fitted them every one of them would have looked gorgeous. But that, of course, is the Gok Wan approach.
Unfortunately this was Gillian’s show. So instead of beautiful Buddha we got bombastic Beelzebub.
One last thing. Gillian smugly pointed out that obese people live 9 years less than their thinner counterparts. Hmm. But if I have to look like Gillian McKeith to gain an extra 9 years on my lifespan then I’m breaking open the lardy cakes right now…
What’s the difference between Gillian McKeith and a walking corpse?
No. I couldn’t think of anything either.
7 comments:
We were all cheering when the English bride told Gillian to PISS OFF.And as for the Cardiff bride and the coffin routine, well you don't mess with a Cardiff girl,at one point we were convinced she was going to seriously slap Gillian(and we would have cheered her on).
As a nurse who has worked in many nursing homes with the elderly I can honestly say that the ones who seem to last longest and are happiest are the ones with a bit of fat on them. The ones Gillian's size go down hill very quickly.
My girls also commented on how losing weight to look like Gillian is not a big incentive!
Having worked for 7 years in a nursing home myself I quite agree with your observations!
I'm glad you decided to review this show. I do agree with you - poor girls being stuffed into dresses too tight for them. On the other hand, I do wish I could have the chance to watch these shows you're watching; the silliness of it all would at least be worth a few laughs. :-) Your description of Gilian reminds me of one of the characters in 'Little Britain' - a fat woman (ok, so Gilian is thin) who keeps making fun of all the fat people in her 'Fat Fighters' group. It's terrible of her, but terribly funny, at the same time...
Ms McKeith doesn't sound very nice to me or particularly intelligent. I suppose, apart from the pay check, she does it to make herself feel superior. I don't understand why some women want to be stick thin anyway. It tends to make them look boyish which isn't particularly feminine. It's not healthy either, not to eat.
Intelligence and humour are much more important than physical traits. Who's to say what is and isn't attractive? Each to his own, live and let live etc. etc. or, in the case of La Gillian, I would suggest she's missing out if she hasn't partaken of a nice big juicy steak!!!
She certainly lacks people's skills. I haven't seen the lastest show but judging on previous episodes...
Negative feedback and criticism may work initially as she puts the fear of god into people...but how long will it last? What will happen when they lose their confidence? Oh, the evil voice reverberating loudly inside their heads...too easy to fall into old habits.
I am just too stubborn, I think, to be told off like that on national tv...I would run the other way!
Sounds like a perfectly sane response to me. Janete! Stubbornness is just another word for individuality and autonomy - definitely good things to be in possession of!
Personally I'd love Gillian McKeith to accost me in a supermarket - I'd have a few answers ready for her! ;-)
I've got similar thoughts the the other posters so far. Also - what happens when Gillian leaves? Having frightened and shocked these poor women, what kind of mental state does that leave them in. How much guilt and anxiety are they going to be left with. They may lose weight, but they're stuck with the fear that any slippage will leave them open to public humiliation as they've now gone on TV. Sounds more like they're going to end up with a (worse) eating disorder.
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