The owner of a greasy spoon cafe in Belfast that provoked a storm of criticism by branding morbidly obese people ‘fatties’ has shrugged off a public outcry and the disapproval of health and disability campaigners.
The furore erupted after a post on the Facebook page of Belfast Breakfast Baps took aim at obese people.
‘If you’re in one of these because you’re morbidly obese please know you are not disabled, you’re fat and probably not very useful,’ read the post, which was accompanied by a photo of a mobility scooter. ‘IT MOST DEFINITELY IS YOUR FAULT.
‘Thyroid issues are workable and you are taking away resources from those who actually deserve not [sic].
‘How about park the mobility scooter and walk, fatty, and maybe even eventually run.’
The comments have drawn widespread criticism, not least because the business offers a breakfast challenge that appears only to encourage overeating.
Customers who succeed in consuming the shop’s £35 titanic breakfast bap, which includes eight eggs, eight pieces of bacon, eight sausages, eight black puddings, beans and mushrooms, are allowed to eat free – so long as they do within 45 minutes.
‘Such a horrible statement to make,’ wrote one commenter, ‘considering you have a Belfast bap challenge that would feed a family of four.’
Belfast Breakfast Baps, owned by 39-year-old bodybuilder Mark Young, offers a titanic breakfast bap – free to anyone who can consume it inside three-quarters of an hour
A post on the shop’s Facebook page, accompanied by a photo of a mobility scooter, has branded morbidly obese people ‘fatties’ – and provoked a storm of criticism
BBC Northern Ireland broadcaster Stephen Nolan visited the establishment on Tuesday morning to ask Young about the controversy. He was reportedly thrown out by Young
‘Seems you’re not aware, but there are disabled folks who’ve gained weight due to their disability, not laziness and the likes, but from pain and the inability to keep on top of exercise because of it,’ another user remarked. ‘Some require those scooters.’
But Mark Young, a 39-year-old who is listed at Companies House as a gym instructor and the company’s sole director, has played down the commotion caused by the post.
‘It’s a free world, and critics are welcome to abuse away, it’s not doing me any harm really,’ said Young.
In common with other health campaigners, however, Professor Paul Gately, the head of Obesity UK, offered a rather different view.
‘Fundamentally, it’s incredibly discriminatory and it really feels it’s attention-grabbing at the expense of people suffering from a disease,’ said Gately.
‘People living with obesity face discrimination every single day. This demonstrates the way in which some people judge people living with obesity, when for many countries across the planet obesity is identified as a disease.
‘I just don’t see that as an appropriate form of business at all.’
That view was echoed by Dermot Devlin, founder of Omagh-based disability rights organisation My Way Access.
‘For this company to come out and laugh, mock and abuse people that are overweight and use mobility scooters is a disgrace,’ Devlin told the Belfast Telegraph.
‘I’ve seen people challenging it and he was putting up more posts mocking them. He has got loads of engagement from that.
‘We feel more and more isolated and are now becoming the butt of jokes. People are mocking and laughing.’
With many social media users calling for a boycott of the cafe, BBC Northern Ireland broadcaster Stephen Nolan visited the establishment on Tuesday morning to ask Young about the controversy. He was reportedly thrown out.
‘Nolan is two stone off a mobility scooter himself,’ the presenter claimed one of his colleagues was told.