Fighting fat?

Thanks to Chrissyfloss for suggesting this one. The Magic Numbers, a popular beat combo (whose singer Romeo Stoddard is described by Amazon in a review of their album as having "the girth of a bear, the hair and beard of a friendly fairy-tale giant and the voice of a mouse") recently walked out of their debut Top of the Pops performance after a "derogatory" introduction by host Richard Bacon (best known as XFM DJ and ex-Blue Peter presenter, once caught by the News of the World snorting coke, and subsequently not a Blue Peter presenter anymore).

Bacon is reported as saying that the band had been put in a big "fat melting pot of talent". Irked at this apparent jibe at their weight, the band refused to perform.

So, is it wrong to use "derogatory" expressions such as "fat" about other people? Is this just people who eat too much getting touchy about their size, political correctness gone too far ("they're not fat, they're abdominally-challenged"), or a fair point from a band who should be judged on their music not their belly sizes? Is "skinny" just as bad, and what about "bald"? Not that I'm worried, obviously...

I think I can promise you that this will be her first - and last - appearance on this blog, but Anne Widdecombe (AKA Doris Karloff) had something interesting to say about this in last week's Guardian while, if you want to see what The Magic Numbers had to say about it all you could look at the NME article about it.

Useful for:
ENA1 - Language and Representation
ENA6 - Language Debates (political correctness)