HILARY FREEMAN was shocked by hatred she received

Last Thursday, I woke up and glanced at my phone, as I usually do. Having written a piece for this paper, which I knew to be on a controversial and sensitive issue — obesity — I was expecting a response, and I steeled myself for the usual mix of angry feedback and supportive messages.

That expectation was naive. Although it was only 8am, there were already hundreds of comments, many of them utterly vile and personal. There were also several requests for TV and radio interviews, which meant my article was ‘news’.

By the time I’d dropped off my daughter at nursery and walked home, at around 11.30am, there were more than 1,000 comments on the article, and not long after that, more than 2,000.

Soon people’s reactions started finding their way on to my social media, too, and into my personal email inbox. When America woke up, a few hours later, the response went global.

Today, almost a week on, the messages are still coming. As online media offers blogs and opinions on my original article, so people comment on those as well, and track me down to express their feelings, perpetuating the cycle. While I have had lots of support, much of the feedback has been extremely unpleasant.

I have variously been called a ‘fat shamer’, told I am a terrible mother, accused of being shallow, judgmental, nasty and dangerous. And those are the least offensive insults.

The majority of people writing to me just want to tell me how fat and ugly I am, to racially slur me for being Jewish or just to let me know they hate me. The grimmest of trolls have informed me they hope I get ill and die.

There have been other, more upsetting consequences. I have been dismissed from my role as an advice columnist on another newspaper. Apparently, they couldn’t have an agony aunt with ‘my attitude’.

She has been called a ‘fat shamer’ and describes the feedback from readers as ‘extremely unpleasant’ (file photo) 

I am very sorry I hurt anyone — as that was not my intention — and worst of all, I have lost several old friends who say they found my article hurtful and will not accept my apologies or explanations. Others are shunning or avoiding me.

What have I done to deserve this vilification and punishment? I stuck my head above the parapet and proffered an opinion on what is apparently the last taboo: people’s weight and size.

I said I believe the fat acceptance movement has gone too far, and that being morbidly obese is not healthy. In doing so, I have clearly touched a raw nerve and lifted the lid on something people are in deep denial about.

I’m most reviled because I dared to say that I prefer to send my daughter to a nursery where the staff are a healthy weight and the menus are nutritious, rather than to one where at least two of the carers are morbidly obese, and the children eat jam sandwiches for tea.

For the record, that was only one factor in my decision — I was visiting several different facilities — and of course I won’t take my daughter out of school in future if she has an overweight teacher.

While there’s little point in rehashing all the arguments I made — save to say I stand by them and they were based on published scientific evidence, not personal prejudice — I’d reiterate I do not find fat people disgusting. It’s obesity I have a problem with, not the obese.

Hilary (pictured) has been subject to racist abuse as well as comments on her own figure and features

I absolutely did not tell my daughter that the nursery teacher was fat. I don’t generally comment on other people’s appearances at all. Neither do I focus on my daughter’s appearance.

I tell her she’s kind and clever and that she’s done really well when she achieves something. The world is fixated enough on people’s looks. And that is exactly what I was trying to say in my article. My concerns about obesity are not about appearance.

Fat people can be and often are very attractive. I have large friends who I think are beautiful. But morbid obesity leads to things that are not attractive — such as amputations and cancerous tumours, blocked arteries and enlarged hearts. Fact.

What’s ironic is that I wrote the article because when I had tried to talk about these issues before, during a perfectly harmless online discussion group, I got shouted down, insulted and told to shut up. And here I was again, being shouted down, insulted and told to shut up. It’s a shame that it seems impossible to have an open debate about this subject.

The march of obesity in our society over the past two decades cannot be ignored. It must not become taboo. According to the NHS we are facing an ‘obesity epidemic’ and official statistics are stark.

In 1993, 13 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women were obese. The latest NHS figures published this year, which relate to 2015/2016, reveal this has risen to 68 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women described as overweight or obese, and obesity was recorded as a factor in 525,000 NHS admissions over that time.

Some people have made social media accounts just to send Hilary hateful messages. She says that this is the highest level of trolling she has ever received – and she has written about abortion, euthanasia and other controversial subjects

Obesity is not healthy: you can’t be fat and fit. Just this week, another study has been published along these lines. Scientists at the University of Birmingham have found that apparently ‘healthy’ obese people are still at higher risk of heart failure or stroke than the general population, after analysing the data of 3.5 million people over 20 years.

Also released this week were figures revealing that the number of diabetes-related amputations in England are at an all-time high of 135 per week. Obesity-related health problems are estimated to cost the NHS some £16 billion a year.

There are indeed many possible reasons for obesity: among them processed food, sedentary lifestyles, lack of sleep, poor nutritional education, hormones, medication, portion size, physical and psychological illness, addiction . . . the list goes on. It is a complex issue, but the fact is not everyone is obese, and it’s not an inevitability. Preaching fat acceptance is only making it worse by telling people it’s not a problem when it is.

The trolling has been far more vicious than I have received for any other article, despite having written on several controversial topics including abortion, euthanasia and anti-semitism in the past.

Some people have created social media accounts just to send me nasty messages, then deleted them so there are no consequences. Others have sent anonymous messages. (Those who have harassed or threatened me using their own names and locations have been reported to the authorities, as well as to the social media moderators.)

But I believe in standing up to bullies.

And I would like to point out to any critics who responded to my article by looking at a photo of me and commenting on my appearance, you’ve lost the argument before you’ve started, by proving yourself to be everything you accuse me of (shallow, judgmental, mean) and worse. Thankfully, I have also had some very supportive messages, several from obese people.

Many friends have written to me privately to say they agree with what I wrote, but are too scared to say so publicly, presumably through fear of putting themselves through this wringer, too.

And even those who don’t entirely agree say they want to defend my right to say it. Worried about whether I’d gone too far in my article, I contacted the National Obesity Forum, a charity formed of health professionals and specialists, whose remit is to raise public awareness of obesity in the UK, and ways in which it can be addressed.

Its spokesman, Tam Fry, said he supported my arguments, and my right to question the ability of the morbidly obese nursery assistant to do her job fully.

He said: ‘We do not expect our nurses, doctors, firemen or policemen to be fat, and neither should we accept it from people in charge of infants.

‘We shouldn’t fat shame the very overweight, but neither should we recoil from sensitively drawing to their attention that being obese has very serious and potentially life-threatening consequences. They should seriously think about losing weight: ignoring this advice will be at their own risk.’

As for my daughter, she is thriving at the nursery I chose, and I am 100 per cent sure I’ve found the best place for her.

Like every mother in the world, I want my child to be happy and healthy, and I will do anything I can to protect her and make her life better. Teaching her to make healthy food choices will not — as I have been warned — cause her to become anorexic or bulimic, or obsessed with her appearance.

Agreeing to write this article was a difficult decision. I know I am opening myself up to yet more flak. And this time I’m ready for it.

But I’d much rather have some intelligent debate on the subject. Wouldn’t you?