EATING AT THE TABLE AND UNDER IT.

There is a running joke about how politicians put on the pounds after getting into office because well, the chaps are eating, both literally and figuratively. However it would appear there exists a closer link than previously thought.

In 2021, Ukrainian scholar Pavlo Blavetsky was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize (a play on the word ignoble) for his study, ‘’Obesity of politicians and corruption in post-Soviet countries.’’ The study highlighted a positive correlation between the weight of officials and the level of corruption.

He discovered that the higher the median weight of national politicians was against the average weight of the population of each country, the worse the placement of the country was in the corruption rankings.

Further evidence of this can be seen in China where Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign of 2012 inadvertently led to an improvement in the health of civil servants from over 40% being overweight before the crackdown to around 11% in 2018.

 In China, political networks and business connections are often established through fine wine and dining. The researchers put it better, "These banquets, typically featuring extremely expensive dishes that are high in calories and proteins (abalone, shark fin and sea cucumbers) as well as high-end baijiu (grain alcohol), play an important role in establishing connections and greasing the wheels of power."

We’re then presented with a causality dilemma, are they corrupt because they are fat or are they fat because they are corrupt? Greed and poor impulse control are traits identifiable in both the overweight and the corrupt. Food for thought when you next spot your area MP smarting a wider waistline than before maybe?

Seasons fimo fimo bane.