You Are What You Eat
"Och, this is revolting!" crows diet-velocorapter Gillian McKeith, staring at the box of poo like it's, well, a box of poo. "This is worst the poo I've ever smelled!" shrieks the angry bag of bones, sloshing about the contents. "Poos should not smell like that! Or loooook like that either! They should look like sausages and curl out in the shape of a letter S and…"I'll spare you the detail, but Gillian has very firm ideas about the perfect excretion. The Saunders family stare guiltily at their bad bum work as Gillian rants and gags. Personally, I'd be more worried if poo popped out smelling of nothing, but, hey, enough about poo, it's time to move on. And by series four, I wish Gillian would, too.
Nevertheless, there's something brilliantly watchable about You Are What You Eat. I love the limitless fury of McKeith as she goose-steps around supermarkets and rifles through kitchen cupboards, greeting double chocolate mini-muffins like anthrax and replacing chocolate buttons with sugar snap peas.
"Mmm! Sugar snap peas! They're so sweet! Delicious! Just as good as chocolate!" she loves to cry, as if repeating the utter falsehood makes it any less risible. I hope the film crew take it in turns to crouch in the downstairs airing cupboard sharing contraband jelly babies, just out of spite.
Gillian McKeith is still coming up with the goods. Sadly, it doesn't stop the trestle table of shame looking bloody delicious...
I love Gillian's trestle table of shame, filled with jam roly-poly, pork pies and pains au chocolat, which the victims always sob in front of and repent their sins, while at home I secretly fancy a large slice of that Battenburg cake washed down with a nice glass of supermarket pop and vodka. "Nooo! Have a spoonful of this beetroot and flax-seed stew with natural yoghurt, then we'll go and do some squat thrusts around the park in Aertex gym knickers! It'll be fun!" Gillian says. Why does no-one ever slap her?
I love the bizarre ritual of filming the victim in a one-piece neon swimming costume looking almost suicidal, which always finishes with a cellulite close-up.
And if there are kids in the family, I love how they're always sent to school with a lunchbox rattling full of macadamia nuts and granola wrapped in Chinese leaves sprinkled with cinnamon. Perish the thought you give the kids a wholemeal roll with lean meat and an apple; no let's send little Johnny to school with a lunch so bizarre that news spreads around the yard that mum is actually a giant mutant squirrel.
Despite all the daftness, as a short, sharp shock You Are What You Eat certainly does the trick. The message is clear: sugar and processed food is bad, fruit and veg is good. Four series on, Gillian McKeith is still coming up with the goods. Sadly, it doesn't stop the trestle table of shame looking bloody delicious. Even if one vanilla slice will mean your poo comes out in a letter Q and smells of purest Satan.
Extracted from Grace Dent's fantastic weekly TV BLOG - Unmissable!!
posted by Freddy @ Friday, September 15, 2006
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