DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: It is estimated that obesity is responsible for 50,000 excess deaths each year. The direct medical costs alone are in excess of 25 billion dollars.

The sound bites continue to build in volume.

If current trends continue, obesity may very well bankrupt our public health system.

Jaws musical sting.

PRODUCER: Extreme close-up of a pre-packaged chocolate éclair disappearing into the hole that is Arty’s mouth

ARTY is a deer in headlights, startled by the camera’s gaze.

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: So how did we get so fat?

PRODUCER: Lady with a head like a toothbrush

Super

Amy Schlusser

Author, Lay Off the Gravy

AMY SCHLUSSER: For early humans, when times were good they needed to stockpile for when times were bad. So, good times, we’ve killed a mammoth, hooray, better save some of that energy for when the berry-picking is lean—and we saved it in the form of fat. We now live in a high-energy environment where access to food is… well, I must’ve passed 17 fast food restaurants in just the two blocks it took to get here.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Shot panning across a table of all the food Arty eats in a day

Sausage rolls and hotdogs and M&Ms and two loaves of white bread and three large pizzas (Hawaiian, Salami Supreme, Prawn Surprise) and a dozen eggs and bacon and fried chicken and lamb vindaloo and several two-litre bottles of Coke and cream puffs and a ham, banana and mayo sandwich for a snack

And inform the good people at home that Arthur consumes a staggering

Yes, a staggering

33,000 calories a day

What the average man consumes in two weeks

(Though fuck me if we’ve found a Mr Average yet)

Cut to

Arty wiping grease off his chin from a deep-fried drumstick when he thought the camera was off.

ARTY: I don’t want you filming that.

PRODUCER: That’s what people want to see—I mean that’s what they need to see. To understand your addiction. This program is about education, right?

ARTY: Mum, you promised me they wouldn’t—

PRODUCER: Look, mate, you’re getting a free ride here, okay? Top surgeon, private care—the works. And you don’t have to lift a pinkie. So how about a little less whining and—oi! I need more cream puffs in shot!

JOJO: He doesn’t eat 33 cream puffs in a go! That was one time when he heard about Amy Winehouse and we were all depressed about that, weren’t we?

ARTY: I don’t wanna look like a freak.

JOJO: Y’know, love, there’s kids in Africa starving for want of a couple of cream puffs. You’d be like a god to them. There’s no-one else in the whole world like my Art-Art.

ARTY: You promised they—

He clocks the camera.

Can you get them out please? [Whispering] I need to shoot a bunny.

JOJO shoos away the camera.