A Resident’s Response To ‘The Most Obese Town in the UK’

Staff Writer Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson reflects on YouTuber Calfreezy’s depiction of residents in Welsh town, Ebbw Vale. She draws on her own personal experiences of growing up there, and challenges the unfair stereotypes perpetuated in the video.

Being adamantly told to leave my hometown was a daily iteration. From peers, teachers, colleagues and family members, I became accustomed to the phrase, ‘make sure you stay away.’ I would always respond in agreement, hoping to ease their discomfort that I would remain where I was. A secondary school teacher of mine addressed the class and etched into our impressionable brains that social mobility was the best option for us. He saw no fulfilment residing in the heart of the valley. My teenage daydreams often existed in a different place. I memorised the pre-destined escape route and my habituation developed into a ritual; it was as natural as blinking.

Living in Ebbw Vale and shielded by the mountains, we feel invisible to the watcher’s eye. We feel abandoned, rejected and simply not important to the world. I longed to be bold. Yet when I did leave my home, I found the opposite to be true; I became anonymous. On bus rides, train journeys, and many forlorn nights holed up in my accommodation, I realised that if I did not peer into the faces of those I left behind, I would ignore what is integral to my very being.

Watching a YouTube video filmed in my hometown caused a palpable bitterness to rise to the surface. This feeling was a direct antithesis to what I had been told and believed for many years of my life. Why should I jump to my hometown’s defence after so many years of professing its inadequacy? After trying to overcome my muddled thoughts, I realised that I was witnessing my home become a laughingstock.  

YouTube star Calfreezy decided to come visit my hometown, after reading a headline written by The Economic Times which named Ebbw Vale (the town I had spent almost two decades of my life growing up in) as the fattest town in the UK. To those who do not know, Calfreezy is not even remotely an expert on social issues. Well-known for his light-hearted and humorous content, Calfreezy cannot intelligently comment on his surroundings; instead, he approaches the subject as somebody visiting SeaWorld who has never watched the documentary ‘Blackfish’.

By growing up wealthy and continuing to make millions from his content, Calfreezy appears as an out of touch class tourist. His jokes stay true to his signature YouTube style, yet the humour strikes as discordant against the realities of a modern impoverished British town. Titling his video ‘The UK’s Most Obese Town’, Calfreezy and his collaborator Reev approach residents of my small hometown to enquire why they believe Ebbw Vale is named the “most obese”.

Occasionally, he makes the decision to replace the term “obese” with “unhealthy”. Often this change in language was directed at individuals who would be considered “obese” – demonstrating a lack of courage on Calfreezy’s part to directly address the subject of his video. Despite this, he feels entirely comfortable mocking the overweight residents with other individuals. This substitution caused residents to provide their insight into deeper issues by reflexively responding to the question of unhealthiness with comments on high rates of drug use.

A common statement made by many locals is that “there is nothing to do here”. Therefore, it is no surprise when many of them fall into the arms of addictive substances for stimulus. When pubs, fast food restaurants, and kebab shops become some of the only habitable areas outside of the home and workplace, addiction is likely to spread. I have unwillingly witnessed the misuse of drugs, such as ketamine (popular amongst young people) taken by peers on various occasions. Certain pubs and clubs within Blaenau Gwent have been described as ‘ketholes’ where there is little to no police intervention.

In spite of this, Ebbw Vale has not always been deprived of things to do. The Festival Park was a principal location residing in Ebbw Vale providing plentiful employment opportunities, entertainment, and a range of seasonal activities. Locally nicknamed ‘the festival’, the retail park was visited by King Charles III in 1992 whilst he was the Prince of Wales. From an Owl Sanctuary, Supertubing, and Fireworks, the town had attractions encouraging millions to visit the area. 

In August 2022, the beloved retail park was closed down; the festival businesses had finally found their positions financially untenable. Now, the town centre is virtually the only place for locals to visit and gather. When witnessing Calfreezy and his companion against a backdrop of shuttered shops, washed out by the typical downpour of the Welsh valleys, it was jarring to view my town from the perspective of outsiders. Could it be that the town is as bleak as it appears?

Despite a run-down high street, the small torch of community life is carried by a few successful businesses present in the town centre. Shops such as Pins & Things, a haberdashery, that run full classes of weekly knitting and crocheting groups, and The Vault Collective, a tattoo/record shop, that run Record Store Days – all of these provide Ebbw Vale with some semblance of life. Other than these incredible efforts, some of the only ways to escape from boredom is to indulge in unhealthy habits. Calfreezy barely addresses the drug problem, evidently not expecting it. Preferable to substance abuse, unhealthy eating is the less harmful choice in comparison.

Hope is distant for the people of Ebbw Vale. Accurately summed up in Calfreezy’s statement, it is viewed by outsiders and residents alike as “the world’s most depressing town”. Growing up in Ebbw Vale often made me displeased by my surroundings. My friends and I would take the train to Cardiff on days we were supposed to be studying mercilessly for our A-Level examinations. Only an hour’s journey, Cardiff provided a shred of escapism necessary to alleviate the dim reality of our situation.

Disappointment pervades every corner of this valley, submerging you in the loss of what could be. The impact of an impoverished neighbourhood on the psyche does not go unnoticed in the area. Reported by MailOnline, one in six people are taking antidepressants in Blaenau Gwent. This statistic does not surprise me or other residents. Indeed, a common side effect of antidepressants is weight gain.

With a viewing of almost a million people, residents have been recognised by peers in the street and in their workplace. Two women in particular were brought to tears by unwanted involvement which induced bullying and harassment. After posting the video, Calfreezy spoke on his collaborative side channel ‘The Fellas Clips’, stating his intent was “a kind of a half serious video, but then I was like I kinda just want to see how big these people actually are” which prompted laughter from his co-host.

Calfreezy’s normalisation of fat-shaming is present in his original video on the town. The top comment reads: “him trying not to mention the words fat or fatty around the fats is amazing”. His involvement even made other residents become resentful of each other. Pre-existing mental health issues amongst the people of Ebbw Vale have been exacerbated by the video, which actively warrants the mocking of fat bodies. Calfreezy, whether it was his intention or not, has exacerbated the already little-self worth which residents experience.

The video does address the lack of affordable healthy food available in Ebbw Vale. However, as one commenter wrote “somehow the word ‘poverty’ never appeared in the video”. If Calfreezy made the connection between poverty and obesity in his “investigation”, residents would be granted empathy and compassion. Fault is placed on Ebbw Vale itself, as if it is famous for housing lazy burdens who lack the care and skill to spend a few extra pounds on a healthier lifestyle.

According to Politics Home, Blaenau Gwent is the “most deprived constituency in Wales”. The article goes on to say that: “Median earnings of full-time workers are £64 a week less than those of the typical British worker”. Originally, Ebbw Vale was home to the Steelworks, an integrated steel mill providing thousands of jobs. It was once the largest steel mill in the whole of Europe, yet it closed in 2002.

David Mitchell once said of Britain as a nation “We used to make steel!“– Ebbw Vale’s purpose was bound to the manufacturing of this material. When steel production ceased after over two-hundred years of labour, there was no replacement. Employment has been scarce ever since, and the hole left by the mill has left the current generation of Ebbw Vale’s inhabitants bereft.

When the government abandoned the project, many were left disregarded by the government now they were no longer considered useful. Furthermore, the county of Blaenau Gwent including Ebbw Vale, Brynmawr, and Tredegar was home to Aneurin Bevan, legendary Labour politician and founder of the NHS. Bevan held the role of Member of Parliament (MP) for Ebbw Vale and amplified the concerns of working people. Bevan took inspiration from the endeavours of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, who funded mining families with free health care. Taking this concept and applying it to the whole nation proves how the county of Blaenau Gwent has a rich history of contributing to the UK.

Small ex-mining and working-class towns have now been tossed to the wayside. The town is described by Calfreezy as “out in the sticks” despite it being an hour away from the capital city of Wales. The only media coverage Ebbw Valee receives is a fourteen-minute video lacking depth of research, care of residents, and historical context. Who is going to give the town the reverence it rightly deserves?