#30 – Fad Diets

While many bogans – usually the male ones – are busy getting huge at the gym, there are many more, of all stripes, getting huge by other means. Prominent among these are bogan standards like late-night McDonalds and KFC. However, there has been a shift underway in the bogan mindset.

Some time ago, the bogan became aware of the benefits of appearing healthy (this is distinct, it bears mentioning, from actually being healthy). This is because an aesthetically pleasing bogan is better positioned to be photographed in those unusual middle sections of the street presses whereby young bogans pose lasciviously in front of a stranger’s camera at the club, often 6 jagerbombs into a 12 jagerbomb night.

The result of this change first manifested itself in stating loudly and publicly that they were ‘watching their weight’. However, this had little to do with actually wanting to eat less-delicious foods. The response was nigh-on instant. McDonalds started a ‘salads’ range, with sufficient dressing as to make it resistant to ordinary forms of biodegradation. And Subway emerged, with footlong (this is not just a marketing term) sandwiches, boasting “six grams of fat”. What remained unmentioned was that the six gram option was a half-sized sandwich, with wholemeal bread, no meat, no cheese, no sauce, and no taste. Naturally, the bogan proceeded to order the footlong meatball (double meat) with tasty cheese, BBQ sauce and pickles, then sat down to enjoy their healthy lunch.

The ensuing weight gain created significant consternation for bogans nationwide. Why was their new diet not successful? Why did they continue to register a BMI of 32? There were clearly only two options. For male bogans, it was that they obviously boasted a higher-than-normal muscle mass, a conclusion reached after learning that professional athletes often had higher-than-normal BMI readings. Female bogans, on the other hand, decided that they had malfunctioning lymph nodes. Or something similarly medicine-y sounding.

As a result, male bogans did nothing. Female bogans, with eyes fixed firmly on the prize, took to ‘dieting’. For years, carbs were the enemy. The Atkins diet, which, not incidentally, advocated the massive consumption of fats in order to get thin, failed. Because it failed to deal with the bogans’ poor metabolism and/or lymph glands (or whatever. Maybe thyroids? The bogan can’t really remember). So, suddenly, the diet market was awash with shakes. Sure Slim, Celebrity Slim and Tony Ferguson all promoted themselves as being able to reduce the collective bogan weight by a noteworthy proportion.

So bogans began drinking shakes. With their Subway and Maccas salads.