Writing in The Telegraph, Dalrymple takes aim at Eli Lilly’s London Underground advertising campaign reassuring people that obesity is not their fault, arguing that the medicalisation of overeating, like the earlier medicalisation of addiction, is part of a broader cultural refusal to acknowledge human weakness and moral responsibility.
All three reasons lead to the elaboration of what in essence is a lie; and with the loss of awareness that Man is a flawed creature goes an inability to sympathise with any weakness. People now think that if you ascribe responsibility to people for their own situation, you are automatically withdrawing all sympathy for them. To judge is viewed as censorious, and censoriousness is horrible. The problem is that not to judge is dehumanising.