Achtung, Baby

Zoe Williams comes through and grabs the coveted Guiteau Monday tag with a blistering takedown of food culture, ca. 2008. To  wit:

Just take one example in this week's news - medics are, apparently, worried about "drunkorexics", which is to say people (generally young women) who offset the calories they imbibe through booze by not eating during the day. Now, people with eating disorders frequently suffer from other addictions - among them, to alcohol - but that has been common knowledge for decades. There is no new evidence here at all; a story like this is simply an example of this persistent urge we have to pathologise our relationship with food.

Obesity only ever comes in "epidemics". "Orexia", I believe, will soon be an umbrella term for any life-threatening disease that only exists in the imaginations of cultural pundits. It will be very annoying for actual anorexics, but they will be too busy not eating to notice. We aggrandise simple things - greed on the one hand, dieting or even plain calorie-counting on the other - because we cannot otherwise justify the feverish seriousness with which we approach this straightforward business.

The whole thing, is pretty much like this, reminding me simultaneously of the noise a grenade makes in the old school Apple 2e version of Castle Wolfenstein, and when Rakim slams it when it's done and makes sure it's broke.