Village on a Diet

Weight Log: 201

Look! You probably didn’t watch the first episode of CBC’s “Canadian version of the fat shows that now infest cable TV.” That’s a good thing. Don’t start! Issues of voyeurism aside I think Margret Wente (whose ope-ed stuff usually makes me cringe)gets it mostly right here.

“It’s a phony solution that reduces an extremely complex social challenge to a question of attitude. It’s junk-food TV, and if I were you, I wouldn’t touch it.”

Village on Diet is part of CBC’s Live Right Now program. Their attempt to make a difference in the health of Canadians.

Not only is this program predictably able to reduce the complexity of weight loss to the manageable stratagems regulated by the rigours of a television broadcast, it once again reinforces overt moralizing of public health through public media. When a broadcast company replete with irrelevance in its connection with Canadian audience, reaches for this type of candy floss programming to fill its schedule you gotta wonder just how much of Steven Harper’s own personal budget is financing this show…