‘IT must be a slow news week’ was one of the many, many comments made about the Havana Club’s decision to turn away ‘fat’ women last week.

The most glaring error with that statement is surely that if this issue is not news, then why have so many people commented on it?

The more interesting question is why it is news, not whether it is. The reason why it is is partly because it is about people, and we all like a bit of gossip, but the more important and more uncomfortable reason is because it goes right to the heart of who we are – and our fears.

Some of the comments which have graced thisisjersey.com and Facebook have been truly saddening because, said publicly, in these forums, what many of them actually amount to is bullying. It is simply fatty bashing, no matter how the comments try to dress themselves up in the guise of health and safety concerns. It is just a way of a person anonymously venting their prejudice (or, more kindly, their judgment) on what size is acceptable or isn’t acceptable to them personally.

At first, some of web comments were funny in the way that things are when you are, in a playground way, simply relieved that they don’t apply to you. Phew, there we go, someone else is the butt of today’s joke, let it ride and no one will notice me. However, once you have processed the fact that these ‘jokes’ are aimed at someone who could be hurt by them, the laughter quickly evaporates.

All those who have said that those who are carrying the weight should lose it, presumably so that they are more generally acceptable, are missing the point. The point being that someone else’s size is absolutely none of their damn business. Whatever people’s opinion on someone’s size, how they got there or what they might or might not be doing about it is no business of anybody else’s.

It is also interesting that there is a perception that because someone is big then they must, by default, be unhappy and want to do something about it. Why? Certainly some people may want to, but if you believe that someone else needs to lose weight, that is your issue over body size, not theirs. Equally, whether the amount that someone weighs is unhealthy or not is their responsibility.

And exactly who decides what size is a good size? How fat is too fat? How thin is too thin?
Quite why anyone thinks they have the right to make and then announce that judgment is completely beyond me.
Even more astounding are those who seem to believe that the people who did not get into the Havana because of the bouncers’ and management’s attitude to their size should simply stay at home. Why, yes, there’s a helpful solution for everyone. Anyone who does not match one person’s strict criteria must not see the light of day – or in this case glitterball – until they have bided their time and made themselves acceptable to the general public.

It may be true that obesity is a health problem on a national scale, but even more unhealthy is our general obsession with appearance and other people’s weight.

In a waiting room earlier this week, a casual flick through Now magazine proved the point: Victoria Beckham is too thin; Natalie Cassidy (Sonia from EastEnders) is too fat and is hurt by comments about her weight; Jade Goody is trying to stay slim – and those are just the three I can remember. Every single story made some comment about the weight of its subject.

What is a little more strange about the Havana incident is that it appears to have been men making the judgment, and only on women. Presumably all the men in the queue that night had measured up, or down, according to the newly imposed weight rule?

It rather makes you wonder what other arbitrary rules clubs have put in place that we simply don’t know about. A harmless personal favourite a couple of years ago was a bar which would not allow men in wearing flip-flops for ‘health and safety reasons’. Women’s flip-flops were allowed. Maybe they just have tougher feet.

According to some of the more worrying phone calls taken in the JEP newsroom since the incident at the Havana last weekend, this by no means the first time that utterly unjustifiable prejudice has been shown on the doors of the Island’s nightclubs. It would seem that health and safety can be used as an excuse no matter what the issue is that separates one person from the masses.

How about being healthy in our attitudes towards others and safe in the knowledge that we live in an accepting society?