Thursday, June 10, 2010

Fat


I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of all the current terms we use to describe what we all used to call fat. We have overweight, obese, morbidly obese, mega BMI and a plethora of other quasi clinical terminology to describe the obvious. Any ten year old kid knows when he sees a fat person; in all likelihood, the kid himself is probably fat.

A recent story about the Mexico City Police Dept illustrates that this issue has gone global. It appears as if the city officials were becoming increasingly concerned that the officers were becoming too fat to do their job adequately. The police were given free meals by the city and were consuming approximately 4000 calories a day. An attempt to reduce the calories to 2500 per day was fraught with consternation by the officers, who simply supplemented their caloric intake with frequent visits to the local taco stand. One could envision that the drug cartels were also supportive of the former 4000 calorie meals, since a fat police officer is often a slow and sluggish adversary.

One outspoken individual on this subject is Joan Denizot, president of the Vermont company, Super Sized Cycles. Joan is a self acknowledged fat person who claims to weigh north of 225lbs. After recuperating from gastric bypass surgery, she was frustrated by her search to find a bike that would accommodate her large frame. Her experience led to the launch of her super sized bicycle business. Joan claims to have come to peace with the word fat. For her, it’s not a sensitive word.

For those men, who have a have a high fat denial quotient,comes an answer to their prayers. The savior comes in the form of compression underwear for men. The hottest item in the men’s wear department at Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Ave and Nordstrom are such names as Spanx, Sculptees, and the Australian label Equmen. The object of these garments is to compress one’s fat, in order to project a more svelte figure to our fat phobic public. So much for being comfortable in one’s skin.

Recently, I’ve been spending a great deal of time in airports. In addition to noticing how much fatter people are outside the Bay area, a new device has appeared to accommodate these greater girth individuals. I call them Oversize People Movers. They are essentially mega wheelchairs that are used to maneuver passengers around the terminal. What makes this scene even more bizarre is that these fat individuals are often pushed around by 100 pound Filipina’s. It’s no wonder that the third world both envies and hates us.

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