by snail » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:04 pm
The story about the Chawner family is mostly nonsense. If you look, it's only the parents who are receiving any kind of benefit which might be linked to their weight, they aren't receiving very much, and the link between their disabilities and their weight is tenuous, i.e. drawing benefit due to asthma, not specifically due to being "too fat to work". It's clear the family mostly did the story to gain the fee from the Telegraph, or possibly just for the fame.
I've been doing magazine writing on and off for years, and the editor's primary motivation for printing something like this is whether or not it will get the reader going, not how newsworthy or accurate it is. Stories like this are best ignored really as they don't reflect reality.
These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.
Najwa Zebian